Touch is perhaps the sense that usually goes unnoticed, but science does not pay less attention to it. The mystery of why we are able to appreciate such subtle changes from one object to another seems to have been solved thanks to recent research from Columbia University.
The study has for the first time used optogenetics – a new method that uses light as a signaling system to activate neurons – in skin cells to determine how they function and communicate .
Thanks to this experiment, scientists have been able to "see" how the cells under the skin's surface, the so-called Merkel cells (located in the epidermis and first described in 1875), are the ones that transmit mechanical stimuli to the skin. nearby sensory neurons and therefore allow us to feel the finest and smallest textures and details of objects in the world around us.
The results of the work, published in the journal Nature , not only describe a key advance in our understanding of tactile sensation, but may also stimulate research on the loss of sensory perception to touch , a condition that occurs with something as natural as aging or medical treatments such as cancer chemotherapy.
