Specific neurons in the skin respond to the direction of touch and can evoke pleasure or non-pleasure.

“And there there's some very interesting biology that relates to really how those little wires from those DRGs innovate our skin. Work studies I should say done by David Ginty's lab at Harvard Medical School, the Ginty lab has spent years working on the somata sensory system, the touch system has identified a particular category of neurons that innervate the skin and then those neurons of course send that information up to the brain too. And they actually respond to direction of touch.”