Our brains don’t always produce the same amounts of the feel-good hormone when someone touches us.
- In humans, physical contact leads to changes in the levels of certain hormones.
- According to this study, these variations depend on the context.
- This could have implications for the management of certain mood disorders.
We need human contact. This is even one of the essential elements for the development of a child: a lack of physical contact can lead to significant developmental delays in the little ones. Touch by another person causes changes in hormone levels, including those of oxytocin, known as the feel-good hormone. But according to a recent study, carried out by Swedish researchers, the cerebral reactions to the touch depend on the context.
How to understand the effects of touch on the brain?
In the specialist journal eLife, the authors explain that animal studies have shown that the hormone oxytocin is associated with touch and social connection, but data is lacking when it comes to humans. To better understand this process, they recruited 42 women and their male partner with whom they conducted an experiment. Brain recordings were made using functional magnetic resonance imaging to observe brain activity while their partner touched their arm. Blood tests were also done to measure changes in oxytocin levels over time. Comparing these different data allowed the researchers to determine whether hormone levels were related to brain activity. “Measures of social interaction between the woman and her partner were compared to what happened when an unfamiliar, non-threatening man touched her arm in the same way.”, add the authors. Either way, the women knew which person was touching their arm. In half of the experiments, the stranger touched them first, then the partner, and vice versa for the rest of the study.
Brain and Touch: Variations in Oxytocin Levels Depend on Context
“We saw that the body’s oxytocin response to touch was influenced by the situation: what had happened moments earlier and with whom the interaction was taking place.observes India Morrison, professor in the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at Linköping University in Sweden. The hormone doesn’t work like an on/off button, but more like a dimmer.” Specifically, oxytocin levels were higher when the partner touched the participant’s arm, but only when he did so first. Then they would drop, before rising again when the stranger touched their arm. “However, when the stranger first touched her, there was no change in oxytocin levels.note the authors. And when his partner then stroked his arm, there was only a slight increase.” According to them, changes in oxytocin levels in the brain were linked to brain regions important for the contextualization of events.
The Swedish scientists believe that these results could have implications for the treatment of certain disorders. “It may be worth bearing in mind that context is important, points out India Morrison, for example when it comes to providing synthetic oxytocin in the form of a nasal spray as part of the treatment of mood-related conditions.”