Massage Engages Spinal Oxytocin Circuits to Reduce Pain and Enhance Well-Being

Affiliative touch engages spinal oxytocin circuits to reduce pain and increase touch reward, with a conserved mechanism from mice to humans.

• Why it matters: The nervous system must interpret the same touch as threat or safety, but where oxytocin converges with somatosensory processing—and how it shapes pain and reward—was unclear.
• What they did: The authors show in mice that social touch activates hypothalamic oxytocin neurons projecting to the spinal cord, where oxytocin signaling is necessary and sufficient; they also use spinal calcium imaging and slice electrophysiology, and assess humans for massage-driven endogenous oxytocin release.
• The result: In humans, massage increases endogenous oxytocin release and is linked to enhanced pain relief and well-being, correlating with slowed spinal somatosensory processing to aversive stimuli and reduced negative affect.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.