Think back to your youth. If you had siblings, I would bet that you’ve experienced a tickle war at some point in your life.
Being tickled is something that everyone has experienced at least once in their life. So why does science know so little about it?
Charles Darwin and Socrates pondered the physical reaction to being tickled.
Queue the Dutch researchers at Radboud University. Led by neuroscientist Konstantina Kilteni, the university has built a “tickle lab” to study this phenomenon more closely.
In the article “We Still Don’t Know How Tickling Works But a New ‘Tickle Lab’ at a University is Finding Out,” Kilteni is quoted as saying, “It is a complex interplay of motor, social, neurological, developmental, and evolutionary aspects.”
One interesting takeaway from the article—something I had never considered—is that you cannot tickle yourself.
That is one of the many mysteries Kilteni is probing. And, yes, I know you’re trying that out right now.
PHOTO CREDIT: Painting by François Boucher – Le sommeil interrompu, 1750, oil on canvas.
