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Hidden Skin Sensory System Discovered

I wonder also if it could be relevant to this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86074

No. Those folks are convinced they are infested with something and want a "cure". It doesn't matter if they feel anything or not, they also are convinced any thread or particle or spot of dirt they see is part of the infection.

Everyone has these nerve endings, having them doesn't make you more sensitive to anything. The people in the first link just lacked the ability to feel pain.
 
Just all a part of "touch".
Well, yes...but that's rather missing the point.

It is an entirely separate nerve network, one that has been essentially ignored, with scientists assuming that it serves only to help regulate blood flow. But it turns out that these nerves actually provide a secondary sensory system.

It is therefore quite reasonable to raise the question of whether or not some forms of pain, or other sensory disorders, could be a result of problems with this secondary system...problems that previously have never been considered because nobody thought these nerves provided this kind of sensory input.
 
Will we now have to retroactively rename a certain movie The Seventh Sense?
 
It depends on how you define "senses".

We already have known about more than 5 senses: "Feeling" is made up of several: texture, temperature, pressure, etc. Each one interpreted though different parts of the brain. "Theory of mind" could be another: How we sense what people are thinking when we interact with them.

Smell and taste are actually very similar in that they are particle-sampling techniques, and could almost be considered the same sense.

But, again, it really depends on how one chooses to build their taxonomy of sensory. There is no "one and only correct" way to do it. It depends on which model is more productive for your purposes.
 
I was thinking more in terms of it being relevant to this thread:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=161325 (the cool breeze)

Pretty neat discovery, wherever it leads.
People who think they feel a breeze when there is none need to have abnormalities of their standard nerve endings and brain evaluated before one needs to start speculating on these nerves contributing. It isn't that far of a stretch to hypothesize the 'cool breeze' feelers are experiencing something akin to the opposite of a hot flash.
 
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People who think they feel a breeze when there is none need to have abnormalities of their standard nerve endings and brain evaluated before one needs to start speculating on these nerves contributing. It isn't that far of a stretch to hypothesize the 'cool breeze' feelers are experiencing something akin to the opposite of a hot flash.

Well yes, but I guess my point is that even if current knowledge doesn't explain an anomalous sensation, this new discovery shows that we still have a good chance to understand even more as our knowledge increases. So even if all current explanations are ruled out, it's premature to assume that the god of the gaps must be responsible, because new discoveries come along all the time.
 
[total speculation]My instinct on this is that the system talked about here ordinarily plays no role in conscious perceptions of touch. However they have taken over a part of that role when normal touch sense is absent. Hasn't it been found that in some blind people, parts of the visual cortex are taken over by functions to do with hearing for example. Could this be something along those lines?[/total speculation]
 
Sounds like another useless redundancy left over from a long ago day before the Lord laid in that new-fangled, intrusive sensory net. Another screw up in the bureaucracy; now we have to maintain both. Gees. :piangry::moneybag:
 
[total speculation]My instinct on this is that the system talked about here ordinarily plays no role in conscious perceptions of touch. However they have taken over a part of that role when normal touch sense is absent. Hasn't it been found that in some blind people, parts of the visual cortex are taken over by functions to do with hearing for example. Could this be something along those lines?[/total speculation]

That sounds like quite a sophisticated system to just grow at need. I'd think more in terms of a Mark I system and a later Mark II.
 
That sounds like quite a sophisticated system to just grow at need. I'd think more in terms of a Mark I system and a later Mark II.

No, I don't think the system grows at need. Its already there, doing the job that we thought it did anyway (regulating blood flow, sweating etc), but when another sense is absent (normal touch perception), the brain is rewired to make use of the normally unconscious system to feed into conscious perceptions which would be absent otherwise.
 

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