Numb tattoo

 Tattoos, which may look "pretty cool", may damage the sense of touch

Tattoos, which may look "pretty cool", may impair the sense of touch / touch, according to a study presented in October 2006 at the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience (studies dealing with neurology).

The researchers tested the ability to distinguish touch among 21 college students with tattoos. They measured it in the following way - touching the skin at two different points at a great distance. Reduce the distance and check again if the subject feels two points or one and so on. The smaller the distance between the two points and the subject still reports a sensation of two points (rather than one), this means that his sense of touch is sharper.

On the back of tattooed skin, a few millimeters more distance was needed relative to untattooed skin for a subject to feel two distinct points, i.e. tattooed skin is less sensitive to touch. The group of researchers hypothesizes that the ink used in tattoos may change the elasticity of the skin and its sensitivity to nerve stimulation, so that external pressure is transmitted less well to the touch-sensitive receptors compared to places where the skin is normal.