Touch

Touch

   Loosely defined as "to come into or be in contact, the word "touch" comes with many meanings, not only as a noun, but in other forms.  A healing touch, a gentle touch, a touch of sadness, or your words touched me...for us, touch is one of our primary senses; and yet, as a recent article in Scientific American Mind points out, up to now we haven't really studied the sensation much and are now discovering how widely and delicately the feeling resides within our bodies.

   Wrote the editor of the magazine, Claudia Wallis:  Scientists have long been familiar with the tactile nerves that transmit pain, texture and temperature.  The surprising news is that we also have nerve fibers uniquely adapted for the kind of "social touching" we do when we soothe or greet one another or cuddle a child.  These fibers are calibrated for strokes that are slow and gentle (below five millinewtons), and they are abundant in the parts of the body we instinctively pat: the shoulders and back, the top of the head.  Salespeople and politicians know how to use social touch to create trust.  Intriguingly, this system may be impaired in people with autism.

   Touch is so important (one of the first sensations a baby receives and recognizes) that "babies who were raised in orphanages without it often died," writes the author of the article, Lydia Denworth.  Now known by neuroscientists as "affective" or emotional touch, this tactile set of nerve endings might prove to be critical to our development, giving us "a sense of self and other, informing our awareness of our own bodies and ability to relate to people around us."  Known as C-tactile (CT) afferent, these fibers can relate to being hugged, or stroked, or a hand on a forehead trying to feel for a fever...and no, as vague a line as it may seem, neuroscientists do separate the touch of sexual response into a separate set of fibers.

   To put this into a less-medical speak, think of the welcoming-home hug from a spouse or child, or being stroked on the cheek in an affectionate moment, or your head being cuddled when you are resting or sick.  What neuroscientists are finding is that connection, that bond, is something that appears to be one element that is missing or lessened in individuals who need a stronger stimulation such as drugs or alcohol, or even relating to disorders as varied as autism.  Because touch has been so understudied, relative to senses such as vision and hearing, and because work on affective touch is so new, there is a feeling among those in the field of venturing into thrilling, uncharted territory...And the interoceptive role of gentle touch could have rehabilitative implications...for conditions as diverse as Rett syndrome or autism, neuropathic pain and spinal cord damage.

   So let's leave the scientific jargon for a bit and jump to something more of us understand, especially if you're reading this on a screen...that of computers and tablets.  Well where in the world does touch enter this picture?  Already on the market are haptic screens and haptic sound, a world defined by Wikipedia as: ...tactile feedback technology which recreates the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user.  This mechanical stimulation can be used to assist in the creation of virtual objects in a computer simulation, to control such virtual objects, and to enhance the remote control of machines and devices (telerobotics).  It has been described as "doing for the sense of touch what computer graphics does for vision".  

   Think of early arcade games or movies where chairs and armrests vibrated with what you were seen on the screen.  Only now, the newer screens let you "feel" the rough skin of a lizard as you rub your hand over it ("it" being the flat plated 2-dimensional screen you're viewing).  Apple is coming out with a haptic "mouse" pad on its new Macs and iPhones.  But much more awaits and is arriving, as told by this piece from last year, all on the site, tom's Hardware. 

   Still, nothing beats a good hug, a "glad-to-see-you" hug, or an "I'm sorry" hug.  There is something so elemental about touch, "the first sense to emerge in utero, and though far from mature, it is the most strongly developed sense at birth," writes author Denworth.  And yet, perhaps more importantly, is the interconnectedness of it all that we're just discovering, the things that reach deep into us, that "touch" us.  It was Helen Keller who perhaps understood it best when she said, "the most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart."  What moves you?  Does holding hands or play wrestling or hugging a person of the same sex feel comfortable?  And if not, why?  Perhaps glancing back at one's own childhood, it could all fall back to touch...too much or too little (or none at all), the right time or the wrong time, the right place or the wrong place.  As with today's neuroscientists, we may be venturing into uncharted territory...and it may be exciting or scary or both.  But one thing is for sure...it is primal, and we are only now finding out why.