Scientists have unraveled the age-old mystery of touch – how
cells just beneath the skin surface enable us to feel surfaces and things
around us. Till this discovery, almost nothing is known about the cells
and molecules that are involved in the process of feeling physical items around
us.
The scientists used optogenetics which involved using light
as a signaling system to manipulate the neurons by turning them on and off on
demand. This enabled the scientists to discover how these cells function and
interact.
The team was able to show that skin cells Merkel cells can
sense touch and work collaboratively with skin’s neurons to create what we
finally perceive as fine details and textures.
According to Ellen Lumpkin, an associate professor of
somatosensory biology at Columbia University medical center, “These experiments
are the first direct proof that Merkel cells can encode touch into neural
signals that transmit information to the brain about the objects in the world
around us”.
Touch is the last frontier of sensory neuroscience.
“No one has tested whether the loss of Merkel cells causes
loss of function with aging – it could be a coincidence – but is a question we
are interested in pursuing,” she added.
There are several conditions (cancer and some cancer chemotherapy
treatments as well as aging that are known to reduce how the body responds to
touch. This new finding will likely open up a field of skin biology and help
shed more light on how sensations are initiated.
The principle used in this find can as well be used to
identify and study other types of skin cells that may play roles in some other
less pleasurable sensations such as itching.
According to the paper published in the journal Nature, the
researchers said these findings could inform the design of new “smart”
prosthetics that restore touch sensation to limb amputees, as well as introduce
new targets for treating skin diseases such as chronic itch.
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