The Importance of Our Senses - Touch

 When deciding which one of our five senses I wanted to learn more about, I immediately was drawn to the sensation of touch because it is the sense that knew the least about. So, it was very interesting to me when David Linden stated in his TedTalk that touch is the sense that scientist also know the least about. Although there are a lot of aspects of the sensation of touch that scientist do not know a lot about, I will be discussing two aspects of touch that I learned about from David Linden. One of those aspects is the effect of receiving touch as a child, and the other is the difference in the way we process touch sensation from the outside world compared to that of our own motion or touch. 

In terms of the importance of touch or tactile sensation as a child, I have always heard and thought that physical touch as a child is important for development and, I learned in this TedTalk that there is evidence to back that statement up. It has been proven that children who receive positive touch sensations as an infant are less likely to develop disorders, delays, and compulsive behaviors. I also learned from David Linden's speech that if positive touch sensations were provided before the age of two that the negative impacts could be completely reversed, however if they were not introduced before the age of two then the child would be more likely to develop and maintain negative side effects that are persistent throughout their lifetime. As I was listening to this, it made me think about a recently learned topic, neuroplasticity,  which is the ability of the brain to change due to as a result of experiences. Therefore, neuroplasticity is what allows the negative side effects of the absence of physical touch to be reversed if intervention occurs before the age of two. In other words, the brain can reorganize itself due to the presence of positive physical touch.

Another aspect of physical touch that I learned about from this TedTalk that was fascinating to me and something that I never thought about before was the way that we process touch sensation from the outside world compared to the touch sensation as a result of the movement our bodies produce. Meaning, our bodies do not recognize or react to the touch sensations that occur due to the production of our own body movements, however we recognize or react to those that come from our environment. I noticed how this also relates to neuroplasticity because our brain has learned to organize itself in such a way that it prioritizes the stimulus from our outside environment in order to react properly to those stimulus.