Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Cheek Injection Model for Simultaneous Measurement of Pain and Itch-related Behaviors
Published on: September 27, 2019
Relief of itch by scratching: state-dependent inhibition of primate spinothalamic tract neurons
Steve Davidson1, Xijing Zhang, Sergey G Khasabov
1University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA.
Abstract:
Itch is relieved by scratching, but the neural mechanisms that are responsible for this are unknown. Spinothalamic tract (STT) neurons respond to itch-producing agents and transmit pruritic information to the brain. We observed that scratching the cutaneous receptive field of primate STT neurons produced inhibition during histamine-evoked activity but not during spontaneous activity or activity evoked by a painful stimulus, suggesting that scratching inhibits the transmission of itch in the spinal cord in a state-dependent manner.
Related Concept Videos
Major Somatic Sensory Pathways
Sensory Functions of the Skin
There are two main categories of receptors on the skin: capsulated and non-capsulated. The non-capsulated ones are mainly the pain receptors. The capsulated ones can be further categorized based on the...
Somatic Spinal Reflexes
One of the most well-known somatic spinal reflexes is the stretch reflex, which is activated by the sudden stretching of a muscle. This reflex involves the activation of specialized sensory receptors called muscle spindles, which are located in the muscle tissue and detect changes in the length and speed of muscle contractions. When a muscle is suddenly...

