Aggression affects nearly all mental disorders and constitutes a burden for society in general and the mental health sector in particular. An incomplete understanding of its underlying neurobiological mechanisms limits treatment efficacy and hinders the development of precision medicine approaches. Here we review recent efforts employing neuroimaging, hormonal and (epi)genetic data to develop biomarkers

Bridging the gap between the neurophysiology of C-tactile mediated touch and the psychology of how social touch makes us feel, we present a definition of affective touch as mediated through CT afferents. We clarify how gentle stroking activating the CT system communicates a signal for social exchange. We describe what is already known about the nature of this signal and how it is perceived as a function

C-tactile (CT) afferents are low-threshold mechanoreceptors present in the skin of humans and are thought to convey positive and pleasant aspects of touch, due to their optimal firing during gentle, caress-like contact. This review explores their role and function through the evidence produced in microneurography studies, where it is possible to record from single CTs in awake, healthy humans. CTs

The article is focused on the problems of diagnosis of personality disorders which are solved slightly differently in DSM-5 and ICD-11. It is shown that the current dimensional models are eclectic and do not provide a sufficient explanation of personality disorders, especially their course and dynamical changes. Alternative models of temperament and its neurobiological basis seem to be needed. The

Interoception, the sense of the body’s physiological state, incorporates information from the skin. Both interoceptive input and social/affective touch are conveyed to the central nervous system through small diameter, unmyelinated afferent fibers that ultimately converge on the posterior insula. This relation is traceable developmentally to the heavy reliance of the fetus and infant on their mother/caregiver

Modern lifestyle and adversities such as the COVID-19 pandemic pose challenges for our physical and mental health. Hence, it is of the utmost importance to identify mechanisms by which we can improve resilience to stress and quickly adapt to adversity. While there are several factors that improve stress resilience, social behavior—primarily in the form of social touch—is especially vital. This article

We focus on social touch as a paradigmatic case of the embodied, cognitive, and metacognitive processes involved in social, affective regulation. Social touch appears to contribute three interrelated but distinct functions to affective regulation. First, it regulates affects by fulfilling embodied predictions about social proximity and attachment. Second, caregiving touch, such as warming an infant

Co-sleeping facilitates physiological regulation and interpersonal trust between partners. Here we discuss the possibility that this effect depends on C-tactile (CT) afferents—a class of unmyelinated mechanosensory cutaneous skin nerves that underlie both parasympathetic regulation and the rewarding neurochemistry of endogenous opioids and oxytocin. The literature reports that insomnia-related problems

The amygdala plays a central role in emotion and social behavior, yet its role in processing social and affective touch is not well established. Longitudinal studies reveal that touch-deprived infants show later in life exaggerated emotional reactivity related to structural and functional changes in the amygdala and other brain structures. The internal organization and connectivity of the amygdala

Just as for any other sensory system, researchers have long wanted to discriminate between the sensory discriminative and hedonic aspects of tactile perception. Supporting such a distinction, researchers have, in recent decades, uncovered the existence of a dedicated system of receptors in the hairy skin (C-Tactile, CT, afferents) that appear to be preferentially tuned to pleasant stroking (i.e. caressing)

C-tactile afferents form a distinct channel signaling pleasant, affective aspects of touch. They have been hypothesized to project, with other unmyelinated afferents, in lamina I-anterolateral pathways. However, recent animal literature highlights the complex functional organization of tactile processing in the spinal cord. Furthermore, evidence in humans indicates spinal transmission of affective

Humans need to be able to differentiate between signals they produce themselves and signals that arise from non-self-causes. It has long been discussed that the brain uses a copy of the motor command, an efference copy, to predict the sensory outcomes of one’s own action — and to attenuate these. While studies in humans suggest that cerebellum and supplementary motor area play crucial roles in the

Touch plays an important role in the development of infants and children. In this review, we highlight the neural conditioning of affective touch and the related physiological responses, especially in the form of parasympathetic activation, pain suppression and stress relief. Based on recent studies, we show that the functionality of a population of C-tactile (CT) nerve fibers, hypothesized to provide

Touch forms a central component of social bonding, both in primates and in humans, via the brain’s endorphin system. In primates, this involves social grooming, acting via the CT neuron system. Although humans still use soft touch for bonding relationships, they have had to find ways of triggering the endorphin system without the need for physical touch in order to be able to increase the size of their

Biomarker research has investigated the neurobiological basis for individual differences in liability to psychosis. However, few biomarkers for psychosis have been consistently found to be useful. This paper reviews several previous approaches to identify putative biomarkers of liability to psychosis, and then highlights the lessons that we have learned. We argue that limiting our research to clinical

This paper reviews studies on the relationship between temperament according to Jan Strelau’s Regulative Theory of Temperament and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), with an emphasis on the results of psychological and genetic research. All temperament traits proposed by the RTT show relationships to PTSD symptoms, which was confirmed in both cross-sectional and prospective studies. The heritability

Climate change continues to expose more of the global population to more frequent and severe extreme weather events. Recent research shows that these changes in extreme weather have not, as yet, consistently motivated changes in opinions about climate change or changes in climate-related behavior. Extreme weather may reinforce opinions among people who are already worried about climate change, yet

Sensory modality, widely accepted as a key factor in the functional organization of posterior cortical areas, also shapes the organization of human frontal lobes. 'Deep imaging,' or the practice of collecting a sizable amount of data on individual subjects, offers significant advantages in revealing fine-scale aspects of functional organization of the human brain. Here, we review deep imaging approaches

Counteracting the worst effects of human-induced climate change is one of the most daunting challenges of our time. There has been an increased recognition of the important role that human emotions, in particular positive affect, play in shaping people’s climate change-relevant decision-making and collective action. Here, we briefly review the rapidly expanding body of empirical research on positive

Climate change is a complex phenomenon that the public learns about both abstractly through media and education, and concretely through personal experiences. While public beliefs about global warming may be controversial in some circles, an emerging body of research on the ‘local warming’ effect suggests that people’s judgments of climate change or global warming are impacted by recent, local temperatures

Accumulating evidence in adults has shown that curiosity and surprise enhance memory via activity in the hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and dopaminergic areas. Based on findings of how these brain areas and their inter-connections develop during childhood and adolescence, we discuss how the effects of curiosity and surprise on memory may develop during childhood and adolescence. We predict that the

How can we as individuals or groups mitigate climate change? One key issue is whether motives other than the pursuit of material self-interest can be used fruitfully to reduce climate change. In this article I describe recent research that supports three deeply rooted concerns: (a) concern with other humans (prosociality), (b) concern with equality (egalitarianism), and (c) concern with animals (as

Connecting individual energy-related perceptions and behaviors to the larger climate system is a daunting task. What can individuals do to change the system itself? How do we perceive how much energy different activities use? Are there ways to improve our perceptions? How do we use behavioral science to motivate climate mitigation and adaptation policies? In this article, I review a body of work focusing

Strategic communication requires the identification and understanding of target audiences for tailored communication. The Global Warming’s Six Americas analysis segments the U.S. public into six distinct, but internally consistent audiences, who each respond differently to the issue of climate change. The segments include the Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful, and Dismissive. The framework

Effectively fighting global warming requires large groups to engage in concerted action. In the present review article we aim to understand how human appraisals and responses to the challenge of climate change are shaped by social identities (i.e. people’s membership in specific social groups). We first describe the recent Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action (SIMPEA), linking social identity

Humans can reason about other minds, comprehend language and imagine. These abilities depend on association regions that exhibit evolutionary expansion and prolonged postnatal development. Precision maps within individuals reveal these expanded zones are populated by multiple specialized networks that each possess a spatially distributed motif but remain anatomically separated throughout the cortex

Public attitudes about climate policy are shaped by social identities, norms, and other sociocultural factors. Recent research demonstrates the impact of cues from policy makers and other political elites on support for climate policies, and the processes by which elite cues perpetuate political polarization. Elite cues convey information about social norms that influence people’s attitudes about climate

Chronic drug use is theorized to induce cortico-striatal neuroplasticity, driving an allostatic process marked by increased sensitivity to drug-related cues and decreased sensitivity to natural rewards that results in anhedonia and a dearth of positive affect. As such, positive emotion regulation represents a key mechanistic target for addictions treatment. This paper provides a conceptual model detailing

Rapidly developing approaches to acquiring and analyzing densely-sampled, single-subject fMRI data have opened new avenues for understanding the neurobiological basis of individual differences in behavior and could allow fMRI to become a more clinically useful tool. Here, we review briefly key insights from these precision functional mapping studies and a highlight significant barrier to their clinical

The fact that a behavior can be instrumental for multiple goals does not logically entail that people are typically propelled into action for multiple reasons. On the contrary, goal-directed behavior in the real world is, in a given instance, aimed at one focal goal. In this article, I present the Campbell paradigm, in which a particular behavior is controlled by a single reason or goal. To identify

Behavior change is widely recognized as an important strategy for mitigating and adapting to climate change. Yet, positive or negative behavioral spillover effects—if prevalent—have the potential to render behavioral interventions more or less effective. Behavioral spillover occurs when the adoption of one behavior targeted by an intervention changes the likelihood that an individual will adopt one

Subjective experience is a powerful contributor to value-based decision-making. Not every decision is the same, nor made in isolation. Rather, decision-making relies on historical information and internal states for adaptive control. Hence, it is inherently continuous with respect to time - one decision or action evolves into the next. However, forays into the neurobiological underpinnings of decision-making

Any strategy to mitigate climate change will have economic and political implications that are incompatible with libertarian ideals of free markets. These political implications have created an environment of rhetorical adversity in which disinformation is systematically disseminated by a variety of politically and economically motivated actors who seek to delay or defang climate policies. I review

Environmental issues are collective action problems that can only be solved with coordinated efforts among diverse groups of people. Whether people are willing to collaborate to solve these problems, however, depends on their perceptions of, and trust in, each other. If people misperceive each other—for instance, due to inaccurate beliefs about who truly cares about environmental issues—then it becomes

Partisan and ideological identities are a consistent barrier to the adoption of climate change mitigation policies, especially in countries where fossil fuel reliance is the highest. We review how understanding collective cognition may help overcome such barriers by changing norms, promoting cooperation, downplaying partisan identities, or leveraging other identities to promote pro-climate change beliefs

Perception is often described as probabilistic inference requiring an internal representation of uncertainty. However, it is unknown whether uncertainty is represented in a task-dependent manner, solely at the level of decisions, or in a fully Bayesian manner, across the entire perceptual pathway. To address this question, we first codify and evaluate the possible strategies the brain might use to

We live in a world that changes on many timescales. To learn and make decisions appropriately, the human brain has evolved to integrate various types of information, such as sensory evidence and reward feedback, on multiple timescales. This is reflected in cortical hierarchies of timescales consisting of heterogeneous neuronal activities and expression of genes related to neurotransmitters critical

Environmental values and identities, at the personal and group level, motivate individuals’ climate actions. Many individuals report having strong environmental values and self-identities, and thus appear personally motivated to support and take climate action. To achieve society-wide climate action, we argue that it is critical to fully use this personal motivational base for climate action by, for

Many climate-relevant behaviours are habitual. Habits are memory-based propensities to respond automatically to specific cues, acquired by repetition of behaviours in stable contexts. Socio-cognitive models are widely used to predict climate-relevant behaviours, but by positing behaviour as intentional, provide a poor account of habitual behaviours. While unsustainable habits are barriers to change

This review summarizes theory and research on how worldviews shape people’s orientation toward climate change. Two broad worldviews are examined: (1) those relating to views about the role of the State in regulating individuals and businesses (i.e. free-market ideology; individualism) and (2) those relating to views about social structure (i.e. social dominance orientation; hierarchialism). For ideological

Limited detection power has been a bottleneck for subject-specific functional MRI (fMRI) studies, however the higher signal-to-noise ratio afforded by ultra-high magnetic fields (≥ 7 Tesla) provides levels of sensitivity and resolution needed to study individual subjects. What may be surprising is that higher imaging resolution may provide both higher specificity and sensitivity due to reductions in

The ventral prefrontal cortex (PFC) of primates-a region strongly implicated in decision making-receives highly processed visual sensory inputs from the inferior temporal cortex (ITC) and perirhinal cortex (PRC) and can therefore be considered visual PFC. Usually, the functions of temporal cortex and visual PFC have been discussed in separate literatures. By considering them together, we aim to clarify

The positive affect of rewards is an important contributor to well-being. Reward involves components of pleasure 'liking', motivation 'wanting', and learning. 'Liking' refers to the hedonic impact of positive events, with underlying mechanisms that include hedonic hotspots in limbic brain structures that amplify 'liking' reactions. 'Wanting' refers to incentive salience, a motivational process that

Despite a strong scientific consensus, there remains a substantial partisan divide in the U.S. regarding belief in, and attitudes toward, human-caused climate change. A preeminent explanation of this phenomenon is directional ‘motivated reasoning’, in which new information is processed in service of reaching a pre-determined, desired conclusion. Much existing work theorizes that partisan polarization

In novel situations, where direct experience is lacking or outdated, humans must rely on mental simulations to predict future outcomes. This review discusses recent work on the neural circuits that support such inference-based behavior. We focus on two specific examples: 1) using knowledge about the associative structure of the world to infer outcomes when direct experience is lacking; 2) inferring

Climate change is the most significant global challenge facing humanity. Despite the unequivocal scientific evidence and the overwhelming adverse impacts of climate change, there is a growing divide in the beliefs on the anthropogenic causes of climate change. To explore the underlying cognitive mechanisms of this divide, we review recent studies revealing a number of attentional and perceptual biases

Recent findings and emerging trends concerning the role of affect and emotion in climate change perceptions and judgments as well as their potential as drivers of sustainable action are reviewed. The affective responses people experience toward climate change are consistently found to be among the strongest predictors of risk perceptions, mitigation behavior, adaptation behavior, policy support, and

One dominant hypothesis about the function of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is that the OFC signals the subjective values of possible outcomes to other brain areas for learning and decision making. This popular view generally neglects the fact that OFC is not necessary for simple value-based behavior (i.e., when values have been directly experienced). An alternative, emerging view suggests that OFC

One dominant hypothesis about the function of the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is that the OFC signals the subjective values of possible outcomes to other brain areas for learning and decision making. This popular view generally neglects the fact that OFC is not necessary for simple value-based behavior (i.e., when values have been directly experienced). An alternative, emerging view suggests that OFC

The mounting research on consumer behavior and climate change is gradually improving our understanding of effective ways to mobilize consumers to mitigate climate change. The relationship between consumer behavior and climate change is complex and most consumers are not capable of determining which behavior changes are worth doing. Research has come a long way identifying the most impactful behavior

We review the latest evidence from animal models, studies in humans using electrophysiology, experimental memory paradigms, and non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), in the form of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), suggesting that the altered activity in networks that contribute to the autobiographical memory (ABM) deficits may be modifiable. ABM involves a specific brain network

Social norm represents one of the most interdisciplinary and important concepts in the behavioral sciences. We reviewed recent research examining the effects of social norms on climate change-related behaviors, identifying relevant evidence in five behavioral domains: eco-friendly consumer choices, energy conservation, reduction/re-use/recycling, sustainable food choices, and water conservation. We

Although lesion-deficit case studies are foundational in cognitive neuroscience, published papers presenting single lesion cases are declining. In this review, we argue that there is a valuable place for single-case lesion-deficit research, especially when combined with functional neuroimaging methods, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). To support this, we present a summary of notable

Precision functional MRI has enabled identification of individual-specific network configurations. A comparison of these individual-specific maps with group-average maps has yielded novel insights into network organization of memory-related brain systems. For example, the default mode network was previously thought to be comprised of three subsystems, but precision fMRI has demonstrated that one of

The ability to sustain attention differs across people and varies over time within a person. Models based on patterns of static functional brain connectivity observed during task performance and rest show promise for predicting individual differences in sustained attention as well as other forms of attention. The sensitivity of connectome-based models to attentional state changes, however, is less

In designing cognitive neuroscience experiments, resource limitations induce a fundamental trade-off between sampling variation across individual brains and sampling variation across experimental conditions. Here, we argue that extensive sampling of experimental conditions is essential for understanding how human brains process complex stimuli, that a model of how any one brain does this is likely

The test-retest reliability of functional neuroimaging data has recently been a topic of much discussion. Despite early conflicting reports, converging reports now suggest that test-retest reliability is poor for standard univariate measures — namely, voxel-based and region-level task-based activation and edge-level functional connectivity. To better understand the implications of these recent studies

Cognitive control, the ability to engage in goal-related behavior, is linked to frontal, parietal, and cingulate brain regions. However, the underlying function(s) of these regions is still in question, with ongoing discussions about their specificity and/or multifunctionality. These brain regions are also among the most variable across individuals, which may confound multi-functionality with inter-individual

Human functional brain networks can be reliably characterized within individuals using precision functional mapping. This approach entails the collection of large quantities of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from each individual subject. Studies employing precision functional mapping in the cerebral cortex have found that individuals manifest unique representations of functional

Hippocampus and entorhinal cortex form cognitive maps that represent relations among memories within a multidimensional space. While these relational maps have long been proposed to contribute to episodic memory, recent work suggests that they also support concept formation by representing relevant features for discriminating among related concepts. Cognitive maps may be refined by medial prefrontal