Studies on Itching

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Abstract
The cutaneous pain system mediates pain, itch and tickle. These form a spectrum with pain (e.g. pin-prick) at one end, and pleasure of erotic quality (e.g. tickle) at the other. Itch is an unintegrated mixture of pain and tickle; its place is in the middle of this pleasure-pain spectrum. The fact that the cutaneous pain system is actually a pain-pleasure system is related to clinically observed behavior in erogenous masochism where, for instance, the subject appears to seek pain, but what is actually desires are the pleasurable erotic sensations of the pain-pleasure system. Pain and pleasure, as studied here, are not antithetical, but are interdependent facets of the same system.

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