Social touch—the affiliative skin-to-skin contact between individuals—can rapidly evoke emotions of comfort, pleasure, or calm, and is essential for mental and physical well-being. Physical isolation from social support can be devastating. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed a global increase ...

Social touch, an important aspect of social interaction and communication, is essential to kinship across animal species. How animals experience and respond to social touch has not been thoroughly investigated, in part due to the lack of appropriate assays. Previous studies that examined social touc...

The establishment and maintenance of strong affiliative relationships is fundamental for group cohesion and crucial for overall individual well-being. Empathy is considered a critical process for promoting attachment and the long-term stability of social bonds. However, it is unclear how different m...