• Question: Why so we get itchy?

    Asked by cookieninja12 to Joe, Juan, Kate, Rory, Rosie on 21 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez

      Juan Carlos Lopez-Baez answered on 21 Mar 2014:


      Hi @cookieninja

      That has to do with the different things that can land on our skin in our every day lives. From things that you can see to things that you cannot see. See, in our skin we have millions of receptors that are always on alert to see if anything disturbs the peace of our skin. When you get something landing on your skin (say an insect or even just very annoying bacteria), the movement of this on your skin causes sufficient irritation to activate these receptors, that send a signal to your brain and tell it to scratch the itch. The reason for the scratching is because that is the best way that the brain has adapted to remove the itch. It is not always efficient and scratching can lead to more itch (as the scratching can cause more irritation), but it tends to be enough to shut the itch message to the brain (or at least momentarily).

      Did you know that these receptors are the same receptors that send pain signals to the brain? Because of this, initially it was thought that an itch was a small/weak form of pain, but since that was suggested scientist have established that that is not the case and that an itch and pain trigger different responses in our brain.

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