More specifically regarding sensations like a TENS unit provides. What happens with our nerves to make us feel the “buzzing” sensation? And why can you only feel it near the contact points of the positive and negative poles if the current travels through your entire body?
In: Biology
Your nervous system is an electrical system, the information it moves around is carried by electricity, unlike like say information carried by the endocrine system which works via hormones (chemicals).
So it isnt really that surprising that we can feel electricity, cause the way we feel anything relies on electricity to carry that message to the brain. So coming into contact with it is going to brute force some signals to the brain over the nerves.
When you touch something that sensation is passed through nerves as an electrical signal to the brain, where you actually register that feeling. Electricity directly stimulates the nerves in a disorganized way like a classic ‘static’ TV channel. To your brain it’s just noise.
Stronger at the source because the current gets spread out. Think of it as tendrils that don’t all take the same path. The reverse can happen, like a static shock FROM you to something else hurts most where it’s most concentrated, at the point of contact, even though charge from your whole body went into that shock.
Depends upon electrical parameters. A microamp AC current may only tingle nerves – the buzzing sensation. A more powerful shock may also trigger hard and painful muscle reactions. A DC voltage may lock those muscles hard. Different parameters result in different reactions.
Latest Answers