3.2 Main effect of stroking and sex differences
Across the whole group (N = 18), gentle skin stroking evoked neural
activation in bilateral somatosensory, bilateral insular, middle
cingulate and precuneus cortices and bilateral cerebellar vermis as
compared to conditions without stimulus (Figure 1). Our results
expectedly resemble brain activation maps reported previously by Tuulari
et al (Tuulari et al., 2019c), highlighting the activation of the two
brain regions known to be the main targets of CT-fibers. Moreover,
similar activity patterns resulted considering the smaller sample (N =
13) (Figure S1).
Insert Figure 1 about here
Regarding sex differences, compared to males (N = 10), females (N= 8)
exhibited stronger BOLD increases in the bilateral OFC, right ventral
and bilateral inferior striatum, pons, and cerebellum, at a statistical
threshold of p = 0.01, FDR-corrected at the cluster level (Figure 2a).
Including to the model maternal BMI, depressive and anxiety scores did
not change the results at uncorrected p < 0.05. Figure S2
represents differences between males and females in the smaller sample
(N = 13).
Insert Figure 2 about here