Feel with your hair

Researchers may have discovered a previously unknown way in which we can perceive the sense of touch.

There are tiny nerve endings all over your skin that use small receptors to detect when someone or something touches you. The information from these tiny nerve endings is sent to the brain.

However, there are new indications that there is another way for us to perceive touch, discovered during a study in which researchers from Imperial College London scrutinised a different group of cells.

They believe they have found evidence that we can perceive light touches directly through our hair follicles, rather than through the skin around the follicles, as was previously believed.

The researchers analysed the genetic material in individual skin and hair cells using RNA sequencing. They discovered that the cells in one part of the hair follicle, the outer root sheath, had a higher percentage of touch-sensitive receptors than even the corresponding cells in the skin. To test the discovery, the researchers grew human hair follicle cells in the lab and mechanically stimulated them to mimic touch. The researchers discovered that the mechanical touch activated a collection of sensory nerves around the cells known as C-LTMRs, found in skin around hair.

Using an analysis method called cyclic voltammetry, the researchers also discovered that the cells in the hair follicle sent signals to nerve cells by releasing the neurotransmitters serotonin and histamine. While the researchers believe they have discovered a new process, the study has only been made using cultured laboratory cells and needs to be confirmed via tests on living creatures.