Sichuan Pepper's Buzz May Reveal Secrets Of The Nervous System - an electric toothbrush

As we all know, Sichuan pepper has brought a pleasant tingling sensation to some Chinese dishes.
What is not so pleasant is the saleand-
When our feet fall asleep, the needle will feel us-
Or when the limbs of a person with an abnormal feeling continue to sting.
Diana Bautista, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, thought: can these feelings be linked?
"A lot of what we know comes from studying plants that give us unique feelings," bowtista said --
For example, how do we experience the heat of the pepper, or the cool of the mint leaves.
So when bowtista decided to investigate what happened inside the nerve cells when we had a tingling, numbing sensation, she turned to the berries of the pepper tree --
It is called Sichuan in Chinese cooking (
Sometimes also spell "Szechwan ")peppercorn.
When I visited her lab, bowtista told me what to expect when I tasted the pepper: "You will get a different feeling.
First of all, I experienced a faint citrus flavor. . .
Then you start to feel a little tingling. . .
And then when you think it's over, it's actually about to start.
"What Bautista wants to know is: why do we feel this mouth buzzing after eating a bowl of spicy mapo tofu?
Will Sichuan pepper activate the same nerve cells when your phone is buzzing or you use an electric toothbrush?
This is a tricky problem because there are 30 different nerve cells called somatosensory neurons that respond to different tactile reactions.
Bowtista recently made an important connection: when she exposed a group of rat neurons to the mountain shool, the mountain shool is an ingredient that makes pepper hum, only big companies responsible for touch and vibration will respond.
"So we are very excited that this is the first compound dedicated to the touch path," she said . ".
But that's not all.
Sichuan pepper, she said, not only imitates touch chemically, but also activates "the same neurons as patients with tingling and numbness sensation abnormalities ".
Her findings may help to find ways to turn off the buzzing feeling for people who have been living in this tingling sensation.
The researchers also used bowtista's findings in other ways.
Nobuhiro Hagura, a neuroscientist at University College London, wants to know if everyone experiences these violent vibrations in the same way --
Just like we hear the same notes in music.
He wrote a paper for the Journal of the Royal Academy of Sciences called food vibration.
"The bottom line is simple: we want to know what frequency Sichuan peppers perceive and whether it is consistent among the participants? " he says.
Hagura designed a great experiment. Twenty-
Eight volunteer volunteers came to his lab and each of them had enough sanshool extract to sting their mouth instead of giving them some spicy takeout.
Each of them has a small box that vibrates like a mobile phone.
The task of the stinging volunteer was to try to match the pepper vibration in their mouth to the vibration at their fingertips, as the researchers dialed the frequency of the box up or down
"They closed their eyes and said 'higher, 'or 'lower,' so this is a strange situation-" Hagura said --"
Until the Sichuan buzz and the mechanical hum come together at a frequency of 50Hz.
Scientists are still looking for other plants that can help unlock the secrets of our nerves.
This ingredient may be hidden in your pantry.