Researchers Find Way to Enhance Sense of Touch

Researchers have found a way to enhance the sense of touch - July 4, 2003. Jessica Berman, Voice of America. In everything we do, touch is vitally important, from buttoning up to using any kind of keyboard. However, some people lose their sense of touch due to reasons such as diabetes or old age. Now, German researchers say they have found a way to strengthen the sense of touch. According to the journal 'Science', these researchers have been able to reactivate NMDA receptor molecules using a combination of mild electric shocks and medication. Several dozen elderly and young volunteers received very mild electric pulses, equivalent to a gentle tap, on their index fingers for three hours. Some of these volunteers were given 'amphetamine', a substance that stimulates the nervous system and enhances NMDA receptor activity. To prove that sensory receptor molecules can be turned on and off, researchers administered a drug to another group of volunteers that inhibits NMDA activity, thereby weakening the sensitivity of their fingers. The sensitivity of the volunteers' fingers was then tested with a needle. Hubert Dins, the project leader at Ruhr University in Bochum, Germany, stated, 'With this method, we were able to bring the sensory ability of an eighty-year-old volunteer to that of a fifty-year-old. This is a significant achievement. The combination of electrical stimulation with amphetamines seems to positively reorganize parts of the brain that control touch activity. We are using methods that resemble science fiction stories and seemed impossible until recently...' However, one or two days after stopping the treatment to enhance sensory signals, the volunteers returned to their previous weak state. Now, the task and challenge facing researchers is to make the sense of touch permanent. If science achieves such success in controlling one of the five important senses, it is not only patients and the elderly who will improve their quality of life using this method. Ordinary individuals may also attain sensations that are currently only possible for a few, such as the ability of musicians to perceive the pitch and tone of notes.