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Scientists Identify How the Body Senses Cold
Vicissidude writes with a link to a story on the Nature website, discussing the discovery of a protein that may enable us to sense cold temperatures. It's been pinned down in mice, and the same protein may perform a similar function in humans. Mice rely on a single protein, called TRPM8, to sense both cold temperatures and menthol, the compound that gives mints their cool sensation. The sensor also controls the pain-relieving effect of cool temperatures, but does not seem to play an important role in the response to painfully cold temperatures below 10 C. TRPM8 is in the same family as the protein that detects heat and capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers hot. These proteins lie in the cell membranes of select neurons, and form channels that open and close in response to external signals."
Literally cool, that is!
Give Kashyyyk back to the Wookies
The ability of simple chemicals to bond and form progressively more complex sensors and computation units shows just how primitive our top-down-engineered silicon computers are. Makes you wonder what our computers and I/O devices will be like when we get to the point where we really grok biochemistry.
Go somewhere random
I don't have any problem sensing cold temperatures. When your eyelashes and nostrils freeze shut when you blink or breathe, it is fairly obvious...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
licet differant, aequabitur
Apparently this protein enables the body's reactions to cold including motivating feelings of numbness/pain in response to cold temps.
This must not be a one-size-fits-all type thing. I spent my first four Winters in VT wearing only light jackets even in the middle of winter.
Some research would be nice to discover if you can test for sensitivity levels. If so, it would also be nice to have someone incorporate that testing into a dating service. My (beloved) lady cranks the heaters all but about three months out of the year and it just might be the end of me.
I now have to wear heavy jackets throughout the winter to keep myself from going into shock over the temp differentials.
I guess you could incorporate this ability into research into Seasonal Affectation Disorder as well. I hear that motivates a good number of suicides every year, and treatment would inprove if you could show a quantifiable correlation between sensitivity to temperature and seasonal depression.
Regards.
Not to detract from the joke, but this isn't true on two levels. First, shivering is the response to a low core body temperature, not the "sensing" of it. Something else in the body is senses the drop in body temperature and triggers the shivering. It may be the way that the conscious brain "senses cold" but its not the way that the body does it. Second, this protein is not for detecting low body temperatures, it is for detecting "cold" surfaces and substances. TFA says this protein triggers at 27 C which is far too cold for use in the shivering mechanism (which triggers at about 35 C).
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Strangely, those temperatures you mention are both below 10 C...
> I'm trying to find a possible practical use of this research but can't think of any. Maybe in finding the vaccine for common cold?
Torture...uh, I mean the War On Terror(TM).
Pain relief, then, perhaps
I wonder if it reduces swelling by tricking the body into restricting the blood flow to the "cold" area.
We are all just people.
50 F is not "painfully cold". In fact, I'm not sure I would describe 50 degrees as cold at all. Hell, 50 degrees won't even make me start to consider putting my shirt back on at Badger games.
The coldest temperature that I've ever been outside in is -60 F. That is air temperature. Who cares about the wind chill at that temp? At that temp, you leave your car running in the parking lot while you're shopping, you don't have a square inch of your skin covered by fewer than 3 layers, and you sure as shit better put your shirt back on while cheering on your Wisconsin Badgers.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
I imagine that's skin / nerve temperature, not air temp. At 50F air temp, your skin is a lot warmer than that.
I and my World of Warcraft character got very excited.
I'm not sure if skin/nerve temperature is the answer either.
Frostbite, or even actual freezing of the extremities, can occur with only a "pins and needles" feeling beforehand, although in some cases there is throbbing and aching. (link)
Since the skin and nerves would have to drop through the 10C (50 f) temperature range before freezing, I don't really see what they are basing their "painful" temperature on. I would guess it is a sustained temperature in that range, but the article doesn't give enough information to really tell.
Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
"I'm trying to find a possible practical use of this research but can't think of any."
you can turn off the cold sensitivity in my teeth any time.
And yes, I'll pay for the privilege.
Nerves in teeth other than pressure sensors. Dumbest idea ever.
Nerves in teeth other than pressure sensors. Dumbest idea ever.
Best argument I've heard today against intelligent design.
Although the body fat content probably is a factor, I think this is more interesting in respect to researching pain management in general. Some people (regardless of fat) can not handle pain very well at all. Others can live with a great deal of pain with no medication.. For instance, many years ago I had a motorcycle accident which destroyed my knee, and had to have surgery to rebuild it.. I have been in pain ever since, but I have learned to ignore it, and don't think about it.., it is just the way it is.., and I don't take any medication for it.. I have met other people who stub a toe, and run to the emergency room for vicodin... Perhaps these proteins work harder in some people than others.. The people like this who can't handle the most minor of pains, end up as pill junkies if they are not careful. If it is possible that these people could be relieved,or at least be made to better tolerate pain without narcotics they would be a whole lot better off.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
....Nipples?
They're like pop-up thermometers in reverse. Very handy.
I hope with this discovery we can finally start to close in on the actual source behind those confounding piss shivers.
I'd be sweltering if it was above 40, and Cold if it were below 15... Freezing if it were below 0. I guess numbers don't really mean anything until we include the units.
Cheers, Chris
"injected their mice with a painful compound, put them on a cold plate and measured the amount of time the mice spent flinching their hind legs in response to the pain. "
You know, if mice ever undergo a genetic mutation causing them to become a dominant species over us, we are sooooooooo fucked.
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For what it's worth, many folks are bragging that they think you can spend some time at 8C (~45F) in the air, but if you were "bathed" in that temperature (e.g., tossed into cold water at that temperature), the expected survival time would only be a couple of hours or less.
Last year on my second year medical course I wrote about TRPM8 being the cold receptor. It's on my course again this year as well on TRP channels in vertebrates AND mentioned in my course on nociception.
Not only is it not new, but it's not desperately interesting. Other receptors like TRPA1 are involved in properly cold sensation, it's thought, TRPV1 in moderate-warm sensations (thats what capsaicin stimulates to make food hot) and TRPV2 is thought to be for properly hot.
Any proper neuroscientist has known about TRPM8 for literally years, this changes very little!