# @themacrosift on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DXC--2YEv5H
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/64206124-themacrosift-instagram
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- **Posted:** 2026-04-12T21:26:20.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** The Macro Sift | Exponential Tech (@themacrosift) — https://gondola.cc/themacrosift

## Caption

🔎 Inside the Tickle Lab

It brings me no pleasure to share this: There is a lab in Sweden where participants (why they voluntarily do this I do not know) sit in a dentist’s chair to be tickled by a robot named Hektor. Scientists set up this experiment slash medieval torture device to observe human brain activity during tickling, as well as the body’s outward response to it, like facial expressions and breathing. I hear some people find this news delightful, and even like being tickled. Turns out, humans’ different responses to tickling can say a lot about us. 
 
Why this matters: Neuroscientists are trying to figure out if tickling has a biological function. Touch is an incredibly important social signal for our species, and one theory is that tickling helps us feel closer to one another. Another theory is that our ancestors used tickling to playfully teach their young what spots on the body are vulnerable in an attack. But people with certain neurodevelopmental or psychological conditions may experience it differently—a 2024 study found that individuals with higher scores on autism tests did not respond as positively to tickling as their lower-scoring peers. In terms of how that relates to me, no comment. 

What the experts say: “Tickling presents neuroscientists with an opportunity to study how complex systems of the brain and body, including those involved in emotion, movement and sensation, relate,” writes Konstantina Kilteni, the principal investigator at the Touch & Tickle Lab based in Karolinska, the Netherlands. —Emma Gometz, newsletter editor
~Scientific American 

#Tickling #Neuroscience

Representational image generated using ChatGPT

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## Tags

neuroscience, tickling

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