Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee Touch – The Forgotten Sense with Professor Francis McGlone #45
19 snips
Jan 16, 2019 
Professor Francis McGlone, a neuroscientist and leading touch researcher, explores why touch is a biological necessity. He unpacks the two touch systems, why modern life is starving us of contact, and how affectionate touch shapes brain development, stress resilience, trust, and belonging. The conversation also looks at preterm babies, social fear around contact, and whether touch can be relearned later.
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The Touch Backlash Changes Human Care
- Fear-driven social norms can suppress beneficial touch even in care, teaching, and medicine.
- Rangan Chatterjee says he now avoids touching patients when delivering bad news because it could be misconstrued.
Pleasant Touch May Be A Social Reward System
- McGlone suggests pleasant-touch fibers act like a reward system that helps humans form affiliative bonds.
- He compares their protective role to pain fibers and says, evolutionarily, these slower C fibers likely came first.
Isolation Stunts Growth From Worms To Infants
- McGlone links touch deprivation to growth problems even in simple organisms and uses that logic for neonatal care.
- Isolated C. elegans grow to half normal length, inspiring his "back in the sack" incubator mattress project.
