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Quantitative Assessment of Cortical Auditory-tactile Processing in Children with Disabilities
Published on: January 29, 2014
Gentle touch activates the prefrontal cortex in infancy: an NIRS study
Tetsuo Kida1, Kazuyuki Shinohara
1Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, Japan.
Insights
Pleasant touch activates brain reward regions in infants. By 10 months old, gentle touch activates the anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC), indicating developmental changes in tactile perception.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Sensory Processing
Background:
- Previous research indicates pleasant touch activates reward pathways in adult brains, specifically the anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC).
- The developmental trajectory of this response in human infants remains largely unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the developmental changes in anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC) activation in response to pleasant tactile stimulation during infancy.
- To identify the age at which infants begin to show reward-related brain responses to gentle touch.
Main Methods:
- Utilized near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to measure brain activity in infants aged 3, 6, and 10 months.
- Compared brain responses to gentle touch with a velvet fabric versus a neutral wood object applied to the palm.
Main Results:
- Ten-month-old infants exhibited bilateral APFC activation when touched with velvet fabric, unlike 3- and 6-month-olds.
- No significant APFC activation was observed in younger infants (3 and 6 months) for either tactile condition.
Conclusions:
- Infant tactile affective systems undergo significant developmental changes between 6 and 10 months of age.
- Activation of the anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC) by pleasant touch emerges as a key indicator of this developmental shift in sensory processing.
Abstract:
Previous studies have demonstrated that pleasant touch activates reward-related cortical regions including the anterior prefrontal cortex (APFC) in adults, but the developmental change is still unknown in infancy. The present study used near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) to investigate activation of the APFC by gentle touching of the hand of infants 2-16 months after birth, who were classified into three groups (3, 6 and 10 months old). Results showed that 10-month-olds, but not 3- and 6-month-olds, showed bilateral activation of the APFC by gentle touching of the palm with a sensuous velvet fabric compared to touch with rounded wood. The present finding suggests that developmental changes in the tactile affective system are associated with the activation of the APFC and that the critical point is between 6 and 10 months after birth.
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