Summary: Changes in skin temperature play a central role in how strongly we experience our bodies as our own. Thermoception — the perception of warmth and cold on the skin — acts as a direct skin-to-brain channel that supports bodily self-awareness and influences emotion, identity, and mental health.
When thermal perception is disrupted, people can experience altered body ownership and detachment. Such disturbances appear in conditions including stroke, anorexia nervosa, depression, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders. Recognising thermoception’s role opens new possibilities for sensory-based therapies, more natural-feeling prosthetics, improved rehabilitation, and for understanding how extreme temperatures and climate change may affect mood and cognition.
Key Facts
- Skin-to-Brain Pathway: Cutaneous temperature signals directly inform bodily self-awareness and emotional grounding.
- Clinical Relevance: Altered thermal perception is associated with changes in body ownership across neurological and psychiatric conditions.
- Therapeutic Potential: Insights from thermoception can guide sensory-based interventions, prosthetic design, and neurorehabilitation strategies.
Source: Queen Mary University of London
As the weather cools, you may notice your fingers and toes going numb outdoors, or your face flushing when you step into a warm room. Those moments of temperature change often make us more aware of our bodies.
Traditionally, body temperature has been treated primarily as a physiological parameter. A new review in Trends in Cognitive Sciences reframes thermoception — our perception of skin temperature changes such as a warm embrace or a sudden chill — as a key contributor to the sense that our body belongs to us.
Authored by Dr Laura Crucianelli (Queen Mary University of London) and Professor Gerardo Salvato (University of Pavia), the review synthesises decades of neuroscience, psychology and clinical research. It highlights an overlooked pathway by which thermal signals from the skin influence brain systems that support bodily self-awareness.
The authors argue that thermoception serves more than homeostasis: it also shapes emotional life, personal identity, and psychological wellbeing. Warmth is among our earliest interpersonal signals — experienced in the womb and during early caregiving — and it continues to anchor feelings of safety and selfhood across life.
Clinical and experimental evidence links disrupted thermal perception with altered body ownership. For example, after stroke, some patients with impaired temperature perception show pathological reductions in recognition that a limb belongs to them. Similar disturbances are documented in conditions such as anorexia nervosa and body integrity dysphoria.
According to the review, brain regions including the insular and parietal cortices appear to mediate the relationship between cutaneous thermosensory signals and body ownership. Thermosensory input interacts with interoceptive systems that track internal bodily states, helping to stabilise a coherent sense of self.
Beyond clinical populations, the review points to broader implications. Mapping how skin temperature shapes self-perception may inform new rehabilitation techniques, help engineers design prosthetics that feel more embodied, and support novel sensory-based mental health interventions. It also raises timely questions about how rising global temperatures and extreme weather exposures could influence mood, stress, and body awareness in daily life.
Why do warm hugs feel reassuring? The authors explain that warm interpersonal touch combines tactile and thermal signals that strengthen feelings of body ownership and social connectedness. These sensory cues engage thermosensitive pathways and affective touch fibres that project to the insula, supporting interoceptive signals associated with safety, oxytocin release, and reduced physiological stress — processes that promote bonding and enhance wellbeing.
Key Questions Answered:
A: Thermal signals from the skin reinforce the feeling that the body belongs to us. They support grounding, emotional regulation and the embodied sense of identity by feeding into interoceptive brain networks.
A: Research links disturbances in thermal perception and body ownership to stroke, anorexia nervosa, depression, anxiety, and trauma-related disorders, where individuals may feel detached from their bodies.
A: Understanding thermoceptive pathways could improve sensory-based mental health treatments, enhance prosthetic embodiment, and inform rehabilitation approaches for neurological patients.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by an editor at Neuroscience News.
- The journal paper was reviewed in full for accuracy.
- Additional context was added by editorial staff to clarify implications and applications.
About this emotion and temperature research news
Author: Katy Taylor-Gooby
Source: Queen Mary University of London
Contact: Katy Taylor-Gooby – Queen Mary University London
Image: Image credit to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Open access. “Shaping bodily self-awareness through thermosensory signals” by Laura Crucianelli et al., Trends in Cognitive Sciences. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2025.11.008
Abstract
Shaping bodily self-awareness through thermosensory signals
Cutaneous thermosensory signals are a fundamental feature of human evolution and individual development, supporting physiological regulation and survival while contributing to the construction of selfhood.
Recent behavioural and clinical evidence indicates that thermal signals from the skin play a role in forming body ownership. Neural systems in the insular and parietal cortices are likely key nodes linking cutaneous thermosensation to the sense that a body is one’s own.
Clarifying how thermosensory signals shape body ownership offers translational insights with direct implications for neurorehabilitation, prosthetic embodiment, and human adaptation to changing environments and temperatures.