Fifth Senses
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The Sixth Sense
Taste, smell, vision, hearing, touch, and… awareness of one's body in space? Yes, humans have at least six senses, and a new study suggests that the last one, called proprioception, may have a genetic basis. Proprioception refers to how your brain understands where your body is in space. When the police ask a drunken person to touch their finger to the tip of their nose, they're testing the sense of proprioception . Previous research in mice has suggested that a gene called PIEZO2 may play a role in this sense, according to the study. The PIEZO2 gene tells cells to produce "mechanosensitive" proteins. Mechanosensation is the ability to sense force, for example, being able to feel when someone presses down on your skin. It also plays a role in proprioception, according to the study. [ 7 Weird Facts About Balance ] To understand the gene's effect in humans, the researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) identified two young patients who had very...
