how can there be conditions that make you not feel specifically pain or make you not have a gag reflex? Touch is such a broad sense that it seems strange for a defect to single out one aspect and not at least dampen ones sense of touch as a whole.
In: Biology
Think of our perceptions of our physical world, our senses, as traveling along a bunch of different paths within our bodies to our brains to be recognized and understood by us. When we think of “touch” it’s a pretty broad term that is actually a little more complex. We really have a bunch of these sensory paths that relay information like pain, deep pressure, temperature, etc – that travel along some different and shared paths to be processed by the brain. So when you consider a condition, let’s think of it as a roadblock, along one of these paths. Depending on what sensation is affected, we can actually often figure out where this roadblock might be- based on what we know about how these paths travel to and from the brain. And so location of the roadblock would determine what lack of sense you might be experiencing. These roadblocks might be unique to specific senses and/or movements, and also unique to the part of the body they might affect! Neurology is a super interesting field, and there are so many interesting conditions out there. The gag reflex is actually a very interesting protective pathway involving a few famous nerves- one you might have heard of is the “Vagus nerve”. About 30% of people actually don’t have a gag reflex!
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