Touch is our first emotional language the language that allows us to receive and understand affectivesignals and help lay the foundation for future social bonds. Despite the widely recognized importance oftouch in brain development and in affective and social communication throughout life remarkably littleis known about its cellular neural substrate. Relatively recent discoveries showed that the skin containsspecializations for detecting and evaluating the pleasantness of touch. It is unclear how these signalsmight be processed in the brain. It is clear however that the amygdala is required for processing thesocial and emotional significance of sensory stimuli regardless of modality. Studies that showed this roleof the primate amygdala focused almost exclusively on vision. Recently we have reported the presence oftouch-responsive neurons in the primate amygdala. We will expand on this initial finding and determinehow these touch-responsive cells respond to the basic sensory features of tactile stimuli: location andintensity (Aim 1). Next we will determine whether tactile cells in the amygdala encode the subjectivevalue of touch (Aim 2). Given the important role of the amygdala in processing social stimuli we will thendetermine how the social dimension of touch factors into the activity of tactile cells (Aim 3). Specificallywe will simultaneously monitor neural responses to touch in the amygdala and somatosensory cortexand compare neural responses to the same type of social touch delivered to the same skin area by twoindividuals with whom the recipient has a different social experience. We expect tactile cells in theamygdala but not in the somatosensory cortex to discriminate between social partners supporting theidea that the amygdala extracts the social-affective dimension (value) of stimuli. Collectively these threeaims provide a conceptually new and technically advanced physiological framework forunderstanding how the primate amygdala responds to and evaluates tactile stimuli that vary insubjective value and social significance. Understanding the cellular machinery of affective touch in theprimate brain is expected to provide important insights into why touch processing is so profoundlyaltered in functional pain syndromes autism and numerous other mental disorders.