Everyone knows that scratching relieves an itch–but how? Neuroscientists now say they’ve found part of the answer in a new study of macaque monkeys. Previous research has suggested that a specific ...

We found a class of lamina I spinothalamic tract (STT) neurons selectively excited by iontophoretic histamine. The responses of this class of neurons parallel the pure itching sensation this stimulus ...

Pain and itch are distinct sensations arousing evasion and compulsive desire for scratching, respectively. It’s unclear whether they could invoke different neural networks in the brain. Here, we use ...

Scientists have shown scratching helps relieve an itch as it blocks activity in some spinal cord nerve cells that transmit the sensation to the brain. However, the effect only seems to occur during ...

Scratching helps relieve an itch by blocking activity in the spinal cord nerve cells of monkeys — a finding that could lead to new treatments to alleviate persistent itching in humans. More than 50 ...