What exactly is sex? On TV and in the movies, it involves a little kissing and hugging, then almost always a quick plunge into intercourse. In romance fiction, it’s passionate, obsessive, ...

Affective tactile memory explains how touch lingers in our minds, influencing how we feel, connect, and respond to ...

Why does a comforting touch stay with us for years, while other sensations quickly fade from our minds? A new paper offers a novel answer, proposing the first comprehensive neurobiological model of ...

You were probably taught that we have five senses: sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. This is not quite right: “touch” is not a single sense, but rather several working together. Our bodies contain ...

The nerve endings in our skin that respond to soft stroking also send signals to the brain to arouse sexual desire under the right circumstances, according to studies in mice and people. Previous ...

In 2018, when Leah Elias was a behavioral neuroscience graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, she noticed something unusual while stimulating nerves in a mouse’s back. The mouse was ...