Neuroscientists at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine have discovered how the sense of touch is wired in the skin and nervous system. The new findings, published Dec. 22 in Cell, open new doors for understanding how the brain collects and processes information from hairy skin.
“You can deflect a single hair on your arm and feel it, but how can you tell the difference between a raindrop, a light breeze or a poke of a stick?” says David Ginty, Ph.D., professor of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins. “Touch is not yes or no; it’s very rich, and now we’re starting to understand how all those inputs are processed.”