(Press-News.org) The science behind the tingling sensation caused by eating a popular Asian spice has been explained by researchers at UCL.
The study, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, helps shed light on the complex interactions between the senses of taste and touch, and could lead to a greater understanding of the causes of the tingling sensations experienced by many chronic pain patients.
Widely used in Asian cooking, the Szechuan pepper was found to mimic the sense of touch in the brain. It chemically activates light-touch fibres on the lips and tongue and sends the equivalent of 50 light taps to the brain per second.
Dr Nobuhiro Hagura (UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience), lead author of the study, said: "This is the first time that we've been able to show how chemicals activate touch fibres, inducing a measureable frequency. We know that natural products like chilli, mustard oil and menthol can activate the thermal and pain fibres in the skin, but we wanted to find out why Szechuan pepper specifically works on the light-touch fibres, producing a conscious sensation of touch and that distinctive tingling feeling."
After Szechuan pepper was applied to the lips of volunteers, participants were asked to match the frequency of the resulting tingling sensation by adjusting a vibrating stimulus, either higher or lower, on their fingertips.
The team was able to show that an active ingredient in the peppers stimulates specific RA1 fibres in the lips and tongue. These fibres are responsible for transmitting touch sensation, and send the equivalent of a light tap on the skin to the brain at the rate of 50 times per second.
Dr Hagura said: "What we found was that a unique active ingredient in the pepper, called sanshool, activates these fibres, sending a highly specific signal to the brain. Szechuan peppers and physical touch sensations share this same pathway to the brain.
"We hope that laboratory studies of the tingling sensations caused by sanshool could help to clarify the brain processes underlying these sensations, and how they are related to pain in some cases."
The team also hopes to investigate the reasons why people enjoy eating Szechuan pepper and how touch sensation can boost the taste of food.
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Notes for editors
1. For more information or to speak to Dr Nobuhiro Hagura, please contact George Wigmore in the UCL Media Relations office on tel: +44 (0)20 3108 9195, mob: +44 (0)7717 728 648 or email: g.wigmore@ucl.ac.uk
2. 'Food vibrations: Asian spice sets lips trembling,' by Hagura al is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B; Biological Science. Copies are available from UCL Media Relations on request.
3. Dr Hagura was supported by a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship. Professor Haggard was supported by the Lerverhulme Trust Research Fellowship and by EU FP7 project VERE.
About UCL (University College London)
Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine.
We are among the world's top universities, as reflected by our performance in a range of international rankings and tables. According to the Thomson Scientific Citation Index, UCL is the second most highly cited European university and the 15th most highly cited in the world.
UCL has nearly 27,000 students from 150 countries and more than 9,000 employees, of whom one third are from outside the UK. The university is based in Bloomsbury in the heart of London, but also has two international campuses – UCL Australia and UCL Qatar. Our annual income is more than £800 million.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk | Follow us on Twitter @uclnews | Watch our YouTube channel YouTube.com/UCLTV
Tingling sensation caused by Asian spice could help patients with chronic pain
2013-09-11
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