08/10/2020

BBC Inside Science

BBC

Technology, Science

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2020

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Claudia Hammond looks at the neuroscience behind our sense of touch. Why does a gentle touch from a loved one make us feel good? This is a question that neuroscientists have been exploring since the late 1990's, following the discovery of a special class of nerve fibres in the skin. There seems to be a neurological system dedicated to sensing and processing the gentle stroking you might receive from a parent or lover or friend, or that a monkey might receive from another grooming it. Claudia talks to neuroscientists Victoria Abraira, Rebecca Bohme, Katerina Fotopoulou and Francis McGlone who all investigate our sense of emotional touch, and she hears from Ian Waterman who lost his sense of touch at the age of eighteen. Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker

Transcript

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0:00.0	Before you listen to this BBC podcast I'd like to introduce myself. My name's
0:04.0	Stevie Middleton and I'm a BBC Commissioner for a load of sport
0:07.5	podcasts. I'm lucky to do that at the BBC because I get to work with leading
0:11.1	journalists, experienced pundits and the biggest
0:13.3	sports stars. Together we bring you untold stories and fascinating insights
0:17.4	straight from the player's mouth. But the best thing about doing this at the BBC is
0:22.0	our unique access to the sporting world.
0:25.0	What that means is that we can bring you podcasts that create a real connection to
0:28.9	dedicated sports fans across the UK.
0:31.5	So if you like this podcast, head over to BBC Sounds where you'll find plenty more.
0:35.2	Hi there, this is Claudia Hammond and Adam Rutherford has kindly lent me his BBC Inside Science
0:41.6	seat so that I can explore the neurobiology of touch.
0:45.8	I've been hosting all sorts of BBC podcasts this week covering the results of a huge online
0:50.8	study The Touch Test. We've heard that interpersonal touch can be good
0:54.8	for us when done safely of course, but what is actually happening in the skin
0:59.6	when we feel the touch of another human being and how is that interpreted by the brain.
1:05.0	Until relatively recently we didn't even know that the body had a special system
1:10.0	just to give us pleasure from the kind of touch that binds us together as humans known as
1:16.0	affective touch. So now there are new frontiers of research opening up for a sense that has been
1:22.4	somewhat neglected.
1:24.0	For every 100 research papers on vision,
1:28.0	there's one on touch, right?
	...

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