How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure?
Neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor discusses efforts to understand how skin contact can be painful or pleasurable, and what touch-obsessed naked mole rats might teach us about human social behavior. The post How Does Touch Lead To Pain Or Pleasure? first appeared on Quanta Magazine
Pain and pleasure are complex phenomena that neuroscientists have yet to fully understand. One example is the difference between physical pain and psychological pain, or why a loved one's touch can be soothing while a stranger's touch can be repelling. To investigate these sensations, Janna Levin spoke with Ishmail Abdus-Saboor, a neuroscientist at Columbia University's Zuckerman Institute.
They discussed the evolutionary role of pain, the challenges of measuring pain and pleasure in the lab due to the lack of objective biomarkers, and how touch serves as a social and emotional signal. Abdus-Saboor also shared his research on naked mole rats, which barely experience pain, show no signs of aging, and live in colonies built almost entirely on touch.
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