Significance of pleasant touch and state-of-the-art neuroscience technologies in acupuncture research

An article entitled"Molecular and neural basis of pleas-ant touch sensation"was published in the top journal Science last year.This research describes the neural cir-cuit of pleasant touch from the skin to the spinal cord[1].Acupuncture and other somatic stimulation therapies also induce comfortable and enjoyable experiences.In the former studies,the mechanisms of these experiences in the brain are discussed.The paper published in Science gave us a novel perspective on the neural circuit of pleas-ant touch sensation from the skin to the spinal cord.In the following four sections,we would like to give our thoughts about how the paper would affect acupuncture research.