In addition to the familiar five senses – touch, sight, smell, hearing, and taste – scientists know of a sixth sense called proprioception It’s the sense of where your body is in space that allows you to touch your nose even with your eyes closed. Proprioception (PRO-pree-oh-ception) also informs balance and how to put one foot in front of the other to walk without looking at your feet.
LSI research assistant professor Shawn Xu and his colleagues discovered that the “sixth sense” is present in the model organism C. elegans, a 1 millimeter nematode,and have been using worms to study proprioception. They have recently discovered some neurons that possibly regulate stretch receptors which tell the body how to move. For patients with Parkinson ‘s disease, these stretch receptors are thought to be involved in the loss of movement control, so finding a neuron that can tweak these signals could be a step towards developing new Parkinson ‘s treatments.
News source: Physorg