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CT afferents are receptors in mammalian hairy skin that fire action potentials when the skin is touched lightly which makes them particularly important in affective touch. Traditionally neuroscientific research has focused on more discriminative and haptic properties of touch that are mediated by large myelinated afferents and the coding properties and functional organization of unmyelinated CT afferents have been studied much less. The proposed volume will draw together existing knowledge in this nascent field. Separate sections will address (1) how we can measure affective touch, (2) CT structure and physiology, (3) CT processing, (4) the contribution of CTs to sexual behavior, (5) clinical relevance, (6) commercial relevance, and (7) future research considerations.

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Sensual Touch: a slow touch system revealed with microneurography.- Functional Properties of C-Low Threshold Mechanoreceptors (C-LTMRS) in Non-human Mammals.- Cell Biology of Tactile Afferents.- Visualization of the cutaneous axonal endings of CLTMs.- The peripheral processing for pleasant touch in mice.- The touch landscape.- Some historical aspects of cutaneous psychophysics.- Psycophysical assessment of the sensory and affective components of touch.- Processing of C-tactile information in the spinal cord.- Insights from A-beta or C-fiber denervated subjects.- Brain Processing of CT-targeted stimulation.- CT afferent-mediated affective touch: brain networks and functional hypotheses.- Brain processing of reward for touch, temperature, and oral texture.- Social touch.- The neurochemical basis of motivation for affiliative touch.- Affective touch and human grooming behaviours: Feeling good and looking good.- The Midas Effect: How Somatosensory Impressions Shape Affect and Other Concerns.- Intimacy and the brain: lessons from genital and sexual touch.- Affective Touch from a Philosophical Standpoint.- The Effects of Touch.- The Touched Self: Affective Touch and Body Awareness in Health and Disease.- Moderate Pressure Massage Therapy.- Psychiatric conditions and touch.- Pain and Touch: roles for C-tactile afferents in pain inhibition and tactile allodynia.

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"This is a good book concerning the neurophysiology and psychophysics of somatosensation in animal models and humans. ... The role of sensory processing in neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression, obsessive compulsive disorders, and schizophrenia is complete. The cortical mapping using EEG, population recordings with fMRI, and grids is detailed. I recommend this book to neurophysiologists, psychiatrists, and psychophysicists especially. Students and sensory researchers will use this book in their work including human/animal experimentation." (Joseph J. Grenier, Amazon.com, February, 2017)

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