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. 2022 Nov 21;16:1015749. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2022.1015749

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Copyright © 2022 Kearney and Lanius.

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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A putative CT-afferent pathway. Light stroking touch to the skin first arrives at the gracile and cuneate nuclei within the brainstem, which interacts with the LC within the RAS to influence arousal. This information flows onward to the midbrain PAG for determination of affective valence and survival relevance. This integrated information then is relayed via a ventral stream to the amygdala and hypothalamus for further emotional processing and endocrine responses, as well as a dorsal stream providing indirect connections to the cingulate cortex and posterior insula. LC, locus coeruleus; PAG, periaqueductal gray; PI, posterior insula; RAS, reticular activating system.