Understanding the Science of Touch: Why It Can Feel Good or Unbearable

Video: https://www.tiktok.com/@distilledscience/video/7514867845835001118

Transcript

Why can touch like this or this start off feeling good? And I'm feeling good. But then quickly shift towards feeling meh. And then for some start to feel unbearable, making you want to give your best... You can't touch this. This is What the Science Tingles in Touch, part four. In the last two videos, we covered why light touch gets processed by certain types of nerves called CT fibers. And how the whole system can be thought of as the giant post office with mailboxes in the nerves, a sorting hub in the spine, So here's what's happening. At first, those tingly strokes trigger CT fibers and get labeled as VIP mail in the brain, triggering pleasure centers for most. But while two poems make a secret admirer, 20 signal a stalker. As more strokes come in, those CT fibers adapt and start firing less and less. The brain starts sorting less of them into that feel-good box. And the mailroom gets bored, as shown by fMRI studies. But in some people, something else can happen. receiving a letter from Steve, copying it, and then sending on that copy. But when repeat letters come in, it says, hey, let's copy all recent letters from Steve and send those all on. The more letters that come in, the larger that send-on package gets. So soon when that massive package reaches the brain, it starts triggering an alert rather than pleasure. And it's most likely to occur when there's a gentle rhythm to the stroke. But why does this happen? First, for anyone whose spinal cord is already on alert. This could be due to an injury in the area, neuropathy, inflammation, and inflammation. or repetitive strain for people like musicians or runners. But it's also made worse by central issues like chronic pain in fibromyalgia, whose sensory volume knobs are already cranked way up. And then things like chronic stress, sleep deprivation, and for some people on the autism spectrum, there are fewer break signals coming from the brain stem down to the spinal cord, making a buildup of signal from there become a lot more likely. And to avoid it, some methods are to break the rhythm, use gentle rubbing or massage to switch up the type of nerves being activated, exercise and good sleep help by improving that central brain stem breaking system. Questions?

Additional notes

Replying to @searobin Have you ever experienced this sort of over-sensitization? What triggered it? NOTE: The complete article on all of this touch stuff will be coming soon to my newly launched Substack 🙂 📚References: fMRI Study on continuous pleasant touch: DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.06.031 Excellent summary article on Windup: 10.3389/fpain.2022.833104 Aand it’s most likely to occur when there’s a regular rhythm to the strokeing. #science #autism #adhd #neuroscience #stem

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