Despite the saying “happiness is having a scratch for every itch,” itching often makes the itchy skin condition worse. So why is the instinct so strong? In a study with mice, researchers from ...

It could be one of the reasons why scratching an itch feels good, and why scratching has been evolutionarily conserved for millions of years. Sometimes, as the saying goes, you need to scratch an ...

To learn more about what happens after scratching, the scientists studied ordinary mice that were allowed to scratch their itchy ears. They noticed that at scratched sites, pain-sensing neurons ...

The research sheds light on why the itch-scratch cycle is so tough to break. Surprisingly, while scratching feels satisfying in the moment, scientists say it actually has an evolutionary purpose ...

“For example, a mosquito usually bites you and then you feel itchy. You don't scratch right when the mosquito is biting you.” Now, in a study published today in Science, researchers at the University ...

However, scratching can also worsen these conditions by fueling inflammation in a vicious “itch-scratch cycle,” where the more you scratch, the worse the itch becomes. Unlike pain, which discourages ...

Itching refers to an unpleasant sensation that causes the need to scratch—the medical term for itching is pruritus. Itching may be confined to a certain area of the body (localized) or can be all over ...