Why the Heck Are We Ticklish?

Why the Heck Are We Ticklish?

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I’ve explained a lot of weird bodily functions on this show but there’s one that we haven’t covered that’s always confused me: Tickling. What are you for, tickling? What’s the point of you? Why do you exist? Why do you make us laugh even though we hate you? Let’s dig into our evolutionary past to try and find an answer.

References:

Laughing, tickling, and speech http://untiredwithloving.org/dhahak.pdf
Pathogenic laughter https://n.neurology.org/content/64/12/2154.short
Tickling review http://charris.ucsd.edu/articles/Harris_EHB2012.pdf
Darwin-Hecker http://charris.ucsd.edu/articles/Harris&Christenfeld_CE1997.pdf
Early thoughts https://www.jstor.org/stable/1411471?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
Neural correlates of laughter https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/23/6/1280/426218
Neural correlates of laughter https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/126/10/2121/314497 Experience of pleasure https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6877978
Tickling and laughter https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/030105119090023P
Ticklish rats https://science.sciencemag.org/content/354/6313/757
Social laughter and pain https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2011.1373


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