Contents:
- Medical Video: All Apologies - Nirvana - Lyrics
- The cause of the body feels tingling when touched or tickled
- But why don't you feel amused when tickling yourself?
- So, is it normal to feel amused when just touched?
Medical Video: All Apologies - Nirvana - Lyrics
Have you accidentally touched someone's body part and he felt an unusual tingle? Why are there people who feel amused when touched just a little, but there are also those who hold amused even though they have been tickled?
The cause of the body feels tingling when touched or tickled
Some people feel excessive tingling if their body parts are touched, though not intentionally to make him feel amused. To reveal this, neurologist David J. Linden, who is also a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine explained, basically tingling is the first defense against attack.
He pointed out that in the soles of the feet all people tend to feel tingly if touched. However, on the other side of the skin, the tingling that arises when touched is a reflex of the body's mechanism to fight off attacks triggered by insects or other animals that might overtake your body.
Itching and tingling are similar effects that require direct physical response. You can think of it as a clue to avoid further attacks. However, this does not apply if the attack comes from yourself. He gave an example, when your hands grope on parts of the body that are prone to tingling, then there is no tickling feeling that appears.
Different if other people or animals do it to you. Reflexively the brain will regulate to cause a tingling sensation. Whereas in the elderly, Linden said the tingling sensation will decrease. He also said that every age increases, a person loses about one percent of the nerve endings of the skin which acts to regulate tingling. But losing nerve endings does not fully cause the feeling of tingling to decrease.
But why don't you feel amused when tickling yourself?
The answer lies in the area of the brain called the cerebellum, which is involved in monitoring movement. Studies conducted by a research team at University College London show that the cerebellum can predict the sensations caused by your own movements, but not if the movements are carried out by someone else.
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, one of the researchers involved in the study revealed that when you try to tickle yourself, the cerebellum predicts the sensation that will be caused, and the prediction is used to cancel the response from other brain regions.
He explained, there are two areas of the brain involved in processing feelings when you are tickled, namely the somatosensory cortex that processes touch and the anterior singular cortex which processes pleasant information (feeling comfortable). These two areas are less active when a person tickles himself, than when he is tickled by someone else.
Further studies have found that you can tickle yourself and feel an ordinary sensation like being tickled by other people with the help of a remote controlled robot. When you press the button on the remote, the robot will pause for a split second before tickling your body. The longer the break, the more amused it feels.
So, is it normal to feel amused when just touched?
There are some people who have a higher level of sensitivity than others so they can make them feel amused when they are just touched. Meanwhile, there are also people who have a low level of sensitivity so that when they are touched or tickled, they just feel uncomfortable.
What's interesting is that tingling can be divided into two types. The first is knismesis or tingling that tends to be light as if there were feathers touched on the skin. Usually, you can do this tingling on yourself. Meanwhile, the other tingling feeling is gargalesis which tends to be more aggressive where when sensitive body parts are tickled, you can laugh freely until it's out of breath.
Health experts say that when the nerve endings under the skin are stimulated by touch, the cortex will immediately analyze the touch and send it to two parts of the brain that will give a signal to laugh and feel good. So, if you are someone who feels amused when touched, don't worry, this is normal.
