The Unknown Human Senses

Aristotle did some harm to the world of philosophy by proposing only five senses: vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell. How could he leave out balance?

Today I came across numerous published researchers claiming that there are a lot more than just 5 senses. Certainly not 5Contrary to the common belief; researchers have put the number to 21. The 5 traditional senses are Sight, Taste, Touch, Hearing and Smell. Other than these, there are lot more senses that we use daily without even thinking about them.

Here are some of those senses:

1. Thermoception:  It is the ability to sense heat and cold. This also is thought of as more than one sense. This is not just because of the two hot/cold receptors, but also because there is a completely different type of thermoreceptors in the brain.

 

2. The sense of Fullness: When you’ve had enough to eat and drink, your body always seems to let you know. It turns out that this is a separate sense within your body, involving its own cluster of sensory receptors that tell you when you need to stop eating.

 

3. Hunger:  This system allows your body to detect when you need to eat something. The craving you get when you haven’t eaten it a while are all caused by this one.

 

 

4. Proprioception:  This sense gives you the ability to tell where your body parts are, relative to other body parts.  This sense is one of the things police officers test when they pull over someone who they think is driving drunk.

 

 

5. Itching: There is much more to the common annoyance of itching than you might think. For starters, that itch you occasionally have is actually completely separate from your sense from touch and serves important functions.

 

 

 

6. Equilibrioception: Sense of balance or equilibrioception is one of the physiological senses related to balance. It helps prevent humans and animals from falling over when standing or moving.

 

7. Chemoreceptors:  These trigger an area of the medulla in the brain that is involved in detecting blood born hormones and drugs.

 

8. Thirst:  This system more or less allows your body to monitor its hydration level and so your body knows when it is thirsty and when should tell you to drink.

 

 

 

 

9. Nociception: Nociception is the sense that allows you to feel pain.Some feel that this should be lumped in with touch—but though the two are often combined, pain is still an entirely different sensation.

 

 

10. Chronoception: Chronoception or time perception refers to the sense of time, which differs from other senses in the ratio of brain vs. physical receptor since time is not directly perceived but is mostly reconstructed by the brain.

 

11. Magnetoreception: Magnetoreception is a sense which allows an organism to detect a magnetic field to perceive direction, altitude or location. Kind of like their personal GPS system. Cool isn’t it!

 

 

We are sure you enjoyed reading the post and learnt something new! If you really did came across something new and learned about it, please don’t forget to like the post and share it with those who might be interested.

Let us know in the comment section below which one of these senses did you find the coolest!

See you guys soon in the next article.
Till then, cheers guys have a good one! 🙂