14 DAY TRIAL // Understanding the way our senses actually work has been a long time-standing quest for scientists and biologists, seeing how the complex nature of their interactions has yet to be deciphered. A recent scientific study, conducted by scientists at the McGill University (MGU), took human knowledge of perception a bit further, after the researchers conducted a series of sensory experiments on test subjects.
J.E. Lugo, R. Doti and Jocelyn Flaubert, from the University of Montreal, and Walter Wittich from McGill University (MGU), wanted to learn exactly how senses influenced each other, in providing the brain with the largest amount of detailed information they could. To see this, they subjected study participants to low-intensity currents, which the test subjects could not perceive through skin touch sensors alone. When the electricity was turned on, subjects reported no pain, and, most importantly, said they felt nothing.
But when a faint light signal and an auditory cue were added to the experiment, people reported that they could indeed sense the mild electric current. As the sound level progressed, they said that their perception of the current increased, in that they could better detect it. However, once a certain limit was reached, participants lost their increased perception, reporting little to no awareness of the pain.
In the conclusion of the report they submitted to the Psychological Science journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the scientists said that a combination of a tactile and an auditory stimulus provided the human brain with the best possible data, so as to identify what was going on around the body.
The real stake of this experiments, and of others similar to it, is to better understand the way the brain uses to interact with our peripheral nervous systems (PNS). Understanding this could lead to novel treatment methods in diseases affecting the PNS, including Lou Gehrig's disease.