Abstract：
Touch is an essential form of non-verbal communication. While language and its neural basis are widely studied, tactile communication is less well understood. We used fMRI and multivariate pattern analyses in pairs of emotionally close adults to examine the neural basis of human-to-human tactile communication. In each pair, a participant was designated either as sender or as receiver. The sender was instructed to communicate specific messages by touching only the arm of the receiver, who was inside the scanner. The receiver then identified the message based on the touch expression alone. We designed two multivariate decoder algorithms-one based on the sender\'s intent (sender-decoder), and another based on the receiver\'s response (receiver-decoder). We identified several brain areas that significantly predicted behavioural accuracy of the receiver. Regarding our a priori region of interest, the receiver\'s primary somatosensory cortex (S1), both decoders were able to accurately differentiate the messages based on neural activity patterns here. The receiver-decoder, which relied on the receivers\' interpretations of the touch expressions, outperformed the sender-decoder, which relied on the sender\'s intent. Our results identified a network of brain areas involved in human-to-human tactile communication and supported the notion of non-sensory factors being represented in S1. This article is part of the theme issue \'Sensing and feeling: an integrative approach to sensory processing and emotional experience\'.
摘要：
触摸是非语言交流的重要形式。虽然语言及其神经基础被广泛研究，触觉交流不太为人所知。我们对情感亲密的成年人进行了功能磁共振成像和多变量模式分析，以检查人与人之间触觉交流的神经基础。在每一对中，参与者被指定为发送者或接收者。发送者被指示仅通过触摸接收者的手臂来传达特定的消息，谁在扫描仪里面。然后,接收器仅基于触摸表达来识别消息。我们设计了两种多变量解码器算法-一种基于发送者的意图(发送者-解码器)，和另一个基于接收器的响应（接收器解码器）。我们确定了几个大脑区域，这些区域可以显着预测接收者的行为准确性。关于我们感兴趣的先验区域，接受者的初级体感皮层(S1)，这两个解码器都能够根据这里的神经活动模式准确地区分信息。接收器-解码器，这依赖于接收者对触摸表达的解释，优于发送器解码器，这依赖于发件人的意图。我们的结果确定了参与人与人之间触觉交流的大脑区域网络，并支持S1中表示的非感觉因素的概念。本文是主题为“感觉和感觉：感觉处理和情感体验的综合方法”的一部分。
