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. 2022 Sep 20;16:943888. doi: 10.3389/fncir.2022.943888

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Copyright © 2022 Lenschow, Mendes and Lima.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Neural circuits for audition and somatosensation in the context of human mate choice. (A) Discriminative touch is thought to be relayed to the dorsal spinal cord via A-beta fibers primarily found in glabrous skin. Touch information is then sent to the cutaneous nucleus (CN) and gracilis nucleus (GN) and travels further through the medulla and mediolateral brainstem before being relayed by the thalamus (ventral posterolateral, VPL, and ventral posteromedial, VPM nuclei) towards the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) which contains a topography of the outer body, known as the homunculus. (B) Social touch is predominantly transmitted via C-tactile (CT) fibers to the dorsal spinal cord. The ascending route through the medulla and brainstem is not unraveled. Social touch is thought to be primarily relayed via the ventromedial part of the posterior thalamus (VMPo) towards the insular cortex. (C) The sound perception pathway. Auditory information is perceived by the cochlear which transmits the information via the cochlear nerve to the cochlear nucleus (CN) from where is sent to the superior olive (SO) and further through the nucleus of the lateral lemniscus (LM) to the inferior colliculus (IC) in the brainstem. The medial geniculate nucleus (MGN) is the thalamic relay station from which information is sent to the primary auditory cortex (A1). (D) Potential neural substrates of human mate choice. Brain, spinal cord, hand, skin, andcochlea icons were created with biorender.