Now is the time of year where people start dreaming of spring and strolling down the street after work reveling in the fact that it is still light enough to do just that. Others are sick of dealing with what my mom always referred to as "winter itch" the truly annoying itch associated with dry skin. Which got me to thinking about itching which then sent me down a Google rabbit hole which I am still stuck in.
Recently there have been some great scientific breakthroughs in understanding the neurological pathways which cause the itch sensation and some of the chemicals associated with itching. (If you want to read some of these articles listed at the bottom of this post. That's great soon hopefully there will be treatments for people with severe itches caused by medications or skin conditions.
One thing with still baffles, at least this mind, is what purpose does itching serve? So, I Googled and Googled and Googled different combination of search terms to see if there was any information about the evolution of itching. Most of what I found were a lot of chatroom discussions on itching where people said things like; "well, duh it tells you when something is crawling across your skin." or "it's a way to tell you to stay away from things." Ok, so I can accept some of the logic here histamines are a group of neurotransmitters which trigger various parts of your immune system letting it know you are under attack. I myself have a severe allergic reaction to any member of the rose family. If I eat a raspberry, blackberry, or try to make rose hip jam I find myself dealing with either annoyingly bad case of hives or full on anaphylactic shock symptoms. So maybe it was just a way to warn us to be more vigilant about the world around us.
But where did itching begin? What was the first organism which experienced itching and how come after generations upon generations of evolution we still have not lost the itch? Is there a way to trace the genes which code for these neurotransmitters to give us an idea of what the environment was like when itching first began and what was the first unfortunate organism to experience itching. I will keep up my Google rabbit hole search and let you know if it spits out any interesting conclusions, until then think and wonder.
Want to know more?
http://www.medicaldaily.com/scratching-itchy-skin-causes-brain-release-hormone-serotonin-intensifies-itchy-sensation-308458
https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-do-we-itch-emma-bryce
http://discovermagazine.com/2014/jan-feb/94-itching-for-answers
http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/why-do-we-itch-the-science-behind-the-scratch/news-story/3ae28d06a0bf2425a0fd8fa3463bd2f3
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-why-we-itch-and-scratch/
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