Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Institut des Systèmes Intelligents et de Robotique, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
Sahba Besharati
Department of Psychology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
Christina Papadaki
Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Laura Crucianelli
Department of Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology, University College London, London, United Kingdom; Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden
Sara Bertagnoli
NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
Nick Ward
Sobell Department of Motor Neuroscience and Movement Disorders, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom
Valentina Moro
NPSY.Lab-VR, Department of Human Sciences, University of Verona, Verona, Italy
Paul M Jenkinson
Department of Psychology, School of Life and Medical Sciences, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom
Specific, peripheral C-tactile afferents contribute to the perception of tactile pleasure, but the brain areas involved in their processing remain debated. We report the first human lesion study on the perception of C-tactile touch in right hemisphere stroke patients (N = 59), revealing that right posterior and anterior insula lesions reduce tactile, contralateral and ipsilateral pleasantness sensitivity, respectively. These findings corroborate previous imaging studies regarding the role of the posterior insula in the perception of affective touch. However, our findings about the crucial role of the anterior insula for ipsilateral affective touch perception open new avenues of enquiry regarding the cortical organization of this tactile system.
