Neuroscience Explains Why We’re “Hungry for Skin” and Need Hugs

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The more one discovers about the brain, the more one notices the significance of contact in our cognitive, emotional, physiological, and social development. From the womb to adulthood, many animals, particularly humans, need physical contact with their peers, so much so that the nervous system reflects this in its structure.

“According to the Mind Theory, a large region of the human brain (and of some primates) is called the social brain: we have mirror neurons that are activated when we are in contact with others; that is, confinement is an excellent measure against pandemics, it has been known for centuries, but it can affect people who have great empathic needs (which does not mean it is not justified)”, explains to EL PAÍS clinical neurologist Teresa Cristina Guijarro Castro.

Months before the Covid pandemic, a small hug industry was beginning to emerge as a response to another epidemic, that of loneliness. “When we are born, the first sense that develops in humans is tact. And we learn about the world through tact,” adds Dr. Cristina Márquez Vega, a researcher at the Alicante Institute of Neurosciences and a member of the Spanish Higher Council of Scientific Research (CSIC) and the Miguel Hernández University.

Hugs, kisses, caresses, and massages are not only pleasant, they are also necessary. We need to be touched, but at this time of the pandemic, even the most optimistic anticipate that social distancing will continue to be a necessary measure to control the spread of the coronavirus. And the human body is hungry for skin.

What is “skin hunger?”

One of the world’s leading authorities on the subject is Dr. Tiffany Field, founder of the University of Miami Touch Research Institute. The pandemic forced this institution to abandon some ongoing studies, such as the number of times groups of teenagers touch or hug each other in fast-food restaurants in the US and Europe (spoiler: in Europe they touch more) or how many people do not stop talking on their cell phones in airport lines, thus avoiding contact with other passengers, but feeling another kind of contact (spoiler: 98 percent).

Field explained in an interview with Wired that confinement allowed her team to engage in other studies, which did not fail to produce interesting data: 26 percent of the research subjects said that quarantine caused them to feel a great absence of contact, while 16 percent said they felt a moderate absence. However, 97 percent reported trouble sleeping. Field attributes these difficulties to a shortage of serotonin, one of the hormones whose levels increase when we touch and are touched. Insomnia can be a side effect of the pandemic.

What happens when we’re touched?

Under our skin, different types of sensors or nerve fibers are spread that react to touch. According to Dr. Cristina Márquez Vega, principal researcher at the Laboratory of Neuronal Circuits of Social Conduct of the Neuroscience Institute of Alicante, “some of these fibers, the C tactile, react to the smooth stimulation of the skin by sending information to various areas of the brain, mainly to the insular cortex (one of the relevant parts of the social brain), but also to the secondary somatosensory cortex, where we incorporate all the information we receive (not only tactile, but also visual, olfactory. …), and to other areas of the cerebral cortex, such as the orbitofrontal and the anterior cingulate, where we process our emotions and with which we make decisions”.

If touch is essential, can we become ill from being alone?

Field points out in the same interview that caresses, hugs and other forms of contact increase our Natural Killers (essential cells in our immune system), so some publications have inferred that the absence of contact would reduce our defenses and render us more vulnerable to the coronavirus when, paradoxically, confinement is intended to prevent it. The reality is much more complex. As Dr. Guijarro Castro, coordinator of the Study Group of Human Sciences and History of Neurology of the Spanish Society of Neurology (SEN), tells us, “two trains of thought are coming together.

On the one hand, it is true and scientifically proven that prolonged stress and situations of fear or anxiety cause an increase in cortisol. And cortisol is a hormone that weakens our immune system. But reversing the reasoning and stating that a relaxation therapy improves immunity seems too bold to me. There are no exhaustive studies on that. In addition, environmental conditions are not the only ones that determine the development of diseases, they also influence genetic factors”.

If we can’t hug others, what alternatives do we have?

Many people anonymously confess to having violated the confinement measures to have physical contact (not necessarily sexual). It was news, for instance, that in Tudela, in the north of Spain, some youths arranged to meet on Facebook just to hug each other. More and more common are hugs in the air (air hugs), which were viralized when a nurse from Wuhan sent one to her daughter.

Tiffany Field explains in her interview that exercises like yoga and walking mobilize our skin and produce friction that would activate the above-mentioned circuit. The doctors approached by EL PAÍS emphasize these alternatives. For instance, Dr. Guijarro recalls that physical exercise alone produces endorphins. And Dr. Márquez adds that “there are individual differences, each one must find their own way to feel good”.

I, on the contrary, don’t want to hug anyone. Is there something wrong with me?

“In a Gauss curve, the vast majority of people need skin contact,” explains Dr. Guijarro. If we were people with “skin hunger” before confinement and now this contact seems like an awkward prospect to us, we may be afraid. Moreover, a kind of fear of a certain complexity. As the doctor explains, meetings and peculiar situations are occurring and will occur.

“It’s strange to meet someone and not be able to hug them, kiss them, etc. There is a certain conflict between what I want and what I consider dangerous. These are processes that are certainly taking place in a region of emotional processing called the amygdala, very related to social behaviors”.

If I follow all the protocol (mask, gloves, etc), why am I still afraid to go out?

“Fear is not rational, because it is generated in a more primary region of the brain,” says Dr. Guijarro to EL PAÍS. “We have three stages of brain evolution, and fear is produced in this older brain, the paleocerebron, which only obeys primary emotions, an area in which one cannot rationalize. It reacts to a bear or an uncomfortable phone call with the same kind of fear.”

Dr. Márquez adds that “the fear that many feel of going out or meeting people is a very normal reaction to a risk that we cannot control. The amygdala and the anterior cingulate cortex come into play, the specialists in processing these uncertain situations”. While the amygdala is more related to value assignment (whether something is good or bad), the anterior cingulate cortex is very much related to depression. “My advice is: if someone feels they can’t manage fear and stress, seek help, even if you’re at home,” she concludes.

So, are we doomed to need?

“Our brain has an incredible plastic capacity,” explains Dr. Márquez. “It’s true that this is a serious situation not only because of the illness but also because of the emotional suffering. But it is also true that we are very adaptable, and when this is over, I am sure that the brain will know how to re-adapt itself to its environment”.

Source: El País