Tickling Discovery
Scientists Say Cerebellum Makes Tickling Yourself Impossible
L O N D O N, Sept. 11 — Scientists may have unraveled a mystery which has puzzled them and millions of children for years — why is it impossible to tickle yourself?
The Daily Telegraph said today the secret lies in the cerebellum, a region at the back of the brain which predicts the sensory consequences of movements and sends signals to the rest of the brain instructing it to ignore the resulting sensation.
A new study suggests the cerebellum, at the back of the brain, warns the rest of the brain when people are about to tickle themselves. (ABCNEWS.com)
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the University College of London examined six volunteers using magnetic resonance imaging to scan their brains as their palms were tickled by a machine. The scan was repeated while they tickled their own palms.
Tickler Warning
In the first case the machine succeeded in tickling the volunteer because the cerebellum cannot warn the rest of the brain when the stimulus is external, even if the brain knows it is about to be tickled.
The mechanism once protected us against predators by distinguishing between stimuli that were created ourselves and those generated externally.
But the system can be fooled.
When the robot used by the volunteers to tickle themselves delayed the action by a fraction of a second, the tickling sensation was there.
“So it is possible to tickle yourself, but only by using robots,” Blakemore said.
Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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The conclusion to me seems kinda pulled out of a hat considering that she only scanned six patients. Also, I would have gone for a more interesting tickling stop rather than the hand. Especially with a brain MRI scan. The feet are outside the bore completely exposed. The only problem is that the patient has to be quiet during the scan or you get motion artifacts in the images. Hence, you have to find a point where the patient can be tickled without actually having her/him jumping around.
I should have been the person in charge of that experiment. . .
Enjoy, 😀
Knight Tickler
Scientists Say Cerebellum Makes Tickling Yourself Impossible
L O N D O N, Sept. 11 — Scientists may have unraveled a mystery which has puzzled them and millions of children for years — why is it impossible to tickle yourself?
The Daily Telegraph said today the secret lies in the cerebellum, a region at the back of the brain which predicts the sensory consequences of movements and sends signals to the rest of the brain instructing it to ignore the resulting sensation.
A new study suggests the cerebellum, at the back of the brain, warns the rest of the brain when people are about to tickle themselves. (ABCNEWS.com)
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore of the University College of London examined six volunteers using magnetic resonance imaging to scan their brains as their palms were tickled by a machine. The scan was repeated while they tickled their own palms.
Tickler Warning
In the first case the machine succeeded in tickling the volunteer because the cerebellum cannot warn the rest of the brain when the stimulus is external, even if the brain knows it is about to be tickled.
The mechanism once protected us against predators by distinguishing between stimuli that were created ourselves and those generated externally.
But the system can be fooled.
When the robot used by the volunteers to tickle themselves delayed the action by a fraction of a second, the tickling sensation was there.
“So it is possible to tickle yourself, but only by using robots,” Blakemore said.
Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
----
The conclusion to me seems kinda pulled out of a hat considering that she only scanned six patients. Also, I would have gone for a more interesting tickling stop rather than the hand. Especially with a brain MRI scan. The feet are outside the bore completely exposed. The only problem is that the patient has to be quiet during the scan or you get motion artifacts in the images. Hence, you have to find a point where the patient can be tickled without actually having her/him jumping around.
I should have been the person in charge of that experiment. . .
Enjoy, 😀
Knight Tickler
