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| | Telegraph | Digital Life | Revealed at last - why you can't tickle yourself |
 | | Studies of this teasing tactile sensation were conducted at the Institute of Neurology, the world's leading research department in the use of body scanners to study activity within the most complex object in the universe, the human brain. |
 | | To perform this feat, the brain distinguishes the sensations, sounds and feelings caused by our own actions, which are usually unimportant and can be ignored, leaving it receptive to sensations caused for other reasons, such as a child's cry for help, the smell of ripe fruit, or the pant of a grinning crocodile. |
 | | But when you attempt to tickle yourself, something in the brain, given the humourless label of a "corollary discharge", can anticipate the effects of our actions and dull the sensation. |
| www.telegraph.co.uk /connected/main.jhtml?xml=/connected/1998/10/29/ecftick29.xml (479 words) |
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