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Biotech Science

Scientists Identify How the Body Senses Cold 120

Posted by Zonk from the bit-chilly-for-me dept.
Vicissidude writes with a link to a story on the Nature website, discussing the discovery of a protein that may enable us to sense cold temperatures. It's been pinned down in mice, and the same protein may perform a similar function in humans. Mice rely on a single protein, called TRPM8, to sense both cold temperatures and menthol, the compound that gives mints their cool sensation. The sensor also controls the pain-relieving effect of cool temperatures, but does not seem to play an important role in the response to painfully cold temperatures below 10 C. TRPM8 is in the same family as the protein that detects heat and capsaicin, the compound that makes peppers hot. These proteins lie in the cell membranes of select neurons, and form channels that open and close in response to external signals."
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Scientists Identify How the Body Senses Cold More

Scientists Identify How the Body Senses Cold

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  • That's so COOL! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tatisimo ( 1061320 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @06:34PM (#19359283)
    Literally cool, that is!

    • I misread this as "How the body senses Gold" (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 01, 2007 @08:35PM (#19360071)
      I and my World of Warcraft character got very excited.

    • It's not new either! (Score:3, Informative)

      by Cougem ( 734635 )
      Last year on my second year medical course I wrote about TRPM8 being the cold receptor. It's on my course again this year as well on TRP channels in vertebrates AND mentioned in my course on nociception.

      Not only is it not new, but it's not desperately interesting. Other receptors like TRPA1 are involved in properly cold sensation, it's thought, TRPV1 in moderate-warm sensations (thats what capsaicin stimulates to make food hot) and TRPV2 is thought to be for properly hot.

      Any proper neuroscientist has
  • Where's the "off" switch? I freeze if it's below 80.

  • Fascinating (Score:2, Funny)

    by bheer ( 633842 )
    The ability of simple chemicals to bond and form progressively more complex sensors and computation units shows just how primitive our top-down-engineered silicon computers are. Makes you wonder what our computers and I/O devices will be like when we get to the point where we really grok biochemistry.

    • Re:Fascinating (Score:5, Funny)

      by tknd ( 979052 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @06:46PM (#19359391)

      Makes you wonder what our computers and I/O devices will be like when we get to the point where we really grok biochemistry.

      Yeah, just imagine sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their heads!

    • Re:Fascinating (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Drooling Iguana ( 61479 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @07:09PM (#19359585)
      Of course, our top-down-generated silicon computers only took a few decades to develop, while it took millions of years for evolution to produce the intricate mechanisms that make up modern life. We're not really doing too bad, considering.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by RxScram ( 948658 )
        Haven't you heard? Humans were intelligently designed in a single day!

        True, the designer had his notes from the previous few days, but that's beside the point.

        • Re:Fascinating (Score:4, Funny)

          by camperdave ( 969942 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @07:56PM (#19359891) Journal
          Haven't you heard? Humans were intelligently designed in a single day!

          Um... I think you mean manufactured in a single day. Who knows how many coffee breaks and napkin doodles the design process actually took?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by olman ( 127310 )
            And when you look at some of the "features" in design, it's perfectly plausible we were intelligently designed on the back of a pizza box 2am after too many beers.

        • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

          by tsa ( 15680 )
          And the topic gives us a nice insight in the mind of our [insert appropriate overlord here]. (S)He/it must have thought: "What do I hate? I know: cold! I shiver even thinking of it. And menthol! Yuch, that must be the foulest substance on the planet. Let's give the sentient being in development a sensor that can detect both cold and menthol then!"

  • No problem with sensing cold (Score:4, Funny)

    by flyingfsck ( 986395 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @06:41PM (#19359353)
    I don't have any problem sensing cold temperatures. When your eyelashes and nostrils freeze shut when you blink or breathe, it is fairly obvious...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by idesofmarch ( 730937 )
      I realize you are joking, but from a survival perspective, it is very useful to be able to detect gradual changes in temperature, so you are not surprised when you freeze to death.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Kyojin ( 672334 )
        But then again, who's surprised at anything when they're dead?

        • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Obviously not zombies. But every vampire that I've staked through the heart had a surprised look on his or her face. And yes, I'm sure they were vampires. Who else would wear a cape in the summer?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by pipingguy ( 566974 ) *
        We find your thoughts interesting and we'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

        Regards,

        Frogs

        PS We do NOT taste like chicken.

    • Re:No problem with sensing cold (Score:5, Interesting)

      by rapidweather ( 567364 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @08:08PM (#19359955) Homepage
      When you get older, there is a "fat" layer under your skin that, for the most part, disappears.
      That's why old ladies, and men, show the "veins" through the skin, and "look ugly", more or less.
      That "fat" layer is what insulates younger people from the cold, and enables them to swim in cold water, for instance. Older people can no longer do that, without the cold hurting quite a bit.
      So, older people really like those sweaters, etc. that you send them for Christmas. It's one of the joys of old age to dress warmly in cold weather, with wool socks, hats, and so forth.
      I heard that the elderly population in Alaska is very small, those who can afford it have moved to Florida.

      Adding my two cents worth, as you can tell, I did not RTFA.

      - Rapidweather

  • Just a rough guess ... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rudisaurus ( 675580 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @06:42PM (#19359363)

    Scientists Identify How the Body Senses Cold
    By shivering?

    • Of shivering, brains, body, and substances (Score:5, Interesting)

      by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @07:06PM (#19359561)
      Not to detract from the joke, but this isn't true on two levels. First, shivering is the response to a low core body temperature, not the "sensing" of it. Something else in the body is senses the drop in body temperature and triggers the shivering. It may be the way that the conscious brain "senses cold" but its not the way that the body does it. Second, this protein is not for detecting low body temperatures, it is for detecting "cold" surfaces and substances. TFA says this protein triggers at 27 C which is far too cold for use in the shivering mechanism (which triggers at about 35 C).

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Sibko ( 1036168 )

        TFA says this protein triggers at 27 C which is far too cold for use in the shivering mechanism (which triggers at about 35 C).
        I think you may want to look up those numbers again. It was 27 degrees celcius here in Vancouver, Canada yesterday, and I was sweating like a pig.
      • 27C is pretty warm, and 35C is hot. I think the body, which is normally at about 37.5C, would be more interested in sweating than in shivering at those temperatures.
        You mean 25F and 35F, right? Those are on opposite sides of the freezing point of water, which is 32C.
        • Jeebus... the human body is normally at about 37C, not 37.5C. Naturally, I only checked this after hitting the "submit" button. If I'd been correcting the GP's spelling or grammar, I would have made some dumbass typing error. The universe has a sense of humor.
          Plus I've just noticed that Slashdot eats the "degree" symbols I have placed between numbers and "F" or "C" in these posts. Weird. Right now, there are no "degree" symbols in the preview of my post, but here in the "comment" field, they still a

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by MrZilla ( 682337 )
          He probably meant that if your core body temp. hits 35C, you will shiver.

          If your core body temp. hits 27C, I think you're in quite a bit of trouble...
          • Yeh... I thought of this when I went out in the frickin' cold a little while ago. I had 37 on the brain from my posts here, and it occurred to me that while the air temperature was in the neighborhood of 8 or 9C, my body's temperature was probably somewhere below 37 and above 35. Then the whole shiver-at-35C thing made sense.

  • Painfully cold? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Below 10 C? 50 F? wow. If that's "painfully cold", I wonder how they'd describe the cold nights here at -35 F...

    On a good note, below about -20 F, it all feels about the same.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Strangely, those temperatures you mention are both below 10 C...
    • Hmm, even minus 20F is fairly tropical, almost T-shirt weather where I live.
    • Do you mean your body temperature is below -20F? I guess you do feel the same.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Swizec ( 978239 )
      I'm pretty certain that no matter where you are, when something colder than 10C is pressed against your skin, or when your skin is cooled down to lower than 10C ... you're going to be in worlds of pain. Especially if you go far below 10C.
      • The issue is how far below 10C. Between 5C-10C just isn't that cold. Even 0C-5C isn't that bad. People who's body temperature has dropped down to 10C are routinely brought back relatively unharmed. Even if they have no vital signs at all. On the other hand, someone who's body temperature is increased by an equivalent amount, say to around 60C, they aren't just without vital signs. They're very dead, as in proteins denatured, irreversible widescale cell damage dead. Hell, if your body temperate hits 40
      • Hi, I'm Canadian.

        I consider anything above 10C to be painfully hot. Painfully cold, to me, would be around -30C. That's why I don't wear a jacket in the winter unless it's raining and someone's walking next to me with a big industrial fan.

        Yes, I'm a freak, but I thought pain was supposed to be a mechanism to warn the body of unsustainable situations. I can't imagine anyone freezing to death at 10C. At 0C, I can concede that a particularly weak person, suffering from exhaustion, would eventually die from

        • Hi, I'm Canadian.
          Are you the guy in the beer commercial?

          I can't imagine anyone freezing to death at 10C.
          I don't think it means going outside fully dressed in 10C air. I think it means that your skin is 10C, as it would be if you were submerged in 10C water. Or beer.
  • Maybe now they can figure out a way to apply this to fix my wife. She is a frigid thing in many ways...

  • Dating service (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ushering05401 ( 1086795 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @07:06PM (#19359555) Journal
    Apparently this protein enables the body's reactions to cold including motivating feelings of numbness/pain in response to cold temps.

    This must not be a one-size-fits-all type thing. I spent my first four Winters in VT wearing only light jackets even in the middle of winter.

    Some research would be nice to discover if you can test for sensitivity levels. If so, it would also be nice to have someone incorporate that testing into a dating service. My (beloved) lady cranks the heaters all but about three months out of the year and it just might be the end of me.

    I now have to wear heavy jackets throughout the winter to keep myself from going into shock over the temp differentials.

    I guess you could incorporate this ability into research into Seasonal Affectation Disorder as well. I hear that motivates a good number of suicides every year, and treatment would inprove if you could show a quantifiable correlation between sensitivity to temperature and seasonal depression.

    Regards.

    • Re:Dating service (Score:4, Interesting)

      by lawpoop ( 604919 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @11:21PM (#19360865) Homepage Journal
      In an anthropology class, we learned that people with European backgrounds have an adaptation to the cold that those of African descent do not.

      When 'white' people get cold, the circulatory system goes through cycles of vasodilation that temporarily increase bloodflow to the skin, warming your body and face. IIRC, they happen about every 40 minutes to an hour.

      Blacks also radiate more heat through the skin and respiratory system, which means they also get colder more quickly. A long nose with small nostrils warms the air better when it enters the nose, and also prevents heat loss as the air leaves the nose.

      This was discovered when the US army was doing cold training exercises in the 50s, I think in Alaska. This was in preparation with war with Russia. The white soldiers lasted longer in the cold than did black soldiers on the whole. Of course, there was a lot of mixing of different genomes -- a lot of blacks in the US has some European ancestry -- so it's not like it's 'black and white' so to speak. I'm not aware of any testing on other racial groups.

      I've never been able to confirm this story on the internet, so new research may have disproved it ;)
      • That's really fascinating. Asians typically have smallish noses, so I wonder how that fits in. How does the stereotypical broad, flattish nose of Africans give them an advantage for their environment? Damn interesting, I'd say.

        Also, see here [wikipedia.org]. You know you want to, everyone does it. Just don't do it while the Google truck is watching you.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lawpoop ( 604919 )

          How does the stereotypical broad, flattish nose of Africans give them an advantage for their environment? Damn interesting, I'd say.

          There were a study about nose shapes and sizes and climate.

          In a humid, warm, jungle environment, the air is pretty much perfect for your warm, humid lungs, so you don't want too much nose structure constricting your oxygen/carbon dioxide exchange. A short nose with wide nostrils helps air exchange. If you look at our great ape relatives who live in the jungle, such as the gorilla or chimp, they have almost no 'nose' at all -- just flat nostrils stuck on their face.

          Our basic anatomical structure probabl

  • They've found the television remote?
  • Are cold temperatures like fast speeds and far distances?

    • Are cold temperatures like fast speeds and far distances?
      Yes. They're based on typical human lifestyle.

      "Cold temperatures" are noticably less than the body's acclimated temperature -- somewhere between 60 and 80, F.

      "Fast speeds" are where we are moving faster than we typically do -- over 20mph on foot, or 15+ over the posted limit on a typical roadway.

      "Far distances" are measured in time -- more than about 30 minutes travel time is "far".
      • Sorry, I wasn't clear on my critique; it was about the redundancy of the phrases, not their meaning. Cold, fast, and far require no use of the words "temperature", "speed", or "distance", since those are implied.

  • Painfully Cold? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Slashdot Parent ( 995749 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @07:38PM (#19359775)

    painfully cold temperatures below 10 C.
    As someone who went to school in Wisconsin, please allow me to provide you with some free education.

    50 F is not "painfully cold". In fact, I'm not sure I would describe 50 degrees as cold at all. Hell, 50 degrees won't even make me start to consider putting my shirt back on at Badger games.

    The coldest temperature that I've ever been outside in is -60 F. That is air temperature. Who cares about the wind chill at that temp? At that temp, you leave your car running in the parking lot while you're shopping, you don't have a square inch of your skin covered by fewer than 3 layers, and you sure as shit better put your shirt back on while cheering on your Wisconsin Badgers.

    • Re:Painfully Cold? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by evanbd ( 210358 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @08:01PM (#19359929)
      I imagine that's skin / nerve temperature, not air temp. At 50F air temp, your skin is a lot warmer than that.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Bender0x7D1 ( 536254 )

        I'm not sure if skin/nerve temperature is the answer either.

        Frostbite, or even actual freezing of the extremities, can occur with only a "pins and needles" feeling beforehand, although in some cases there is throbbing and aching. (link [nih.gov])

        Since the skin and nerves would have to drop through the 10C (50 f) temperature range before freezing, I don't really see what they are basing their "painful" temperature on. I would guess it is a sustained temperature in that range, but the article doesn't give enough in

        • Re:Painfully Cold? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by slew ( 2918 ) on Saturday June 02, 2007 @12:22AM (#19361107)
          Perhaps this article [molecularpain.com] can shed some more light on this subject (for anyone interested)...

          This cold and menthol receptor, termed CMR1 or TRPM8, was activated at a temperature threshold of ~28C, with currents increasing in magnitude down to 8C

          For what it's worth, many folks are bragging that they think you can spend some time at 8C (~45F) in the air, but if you were "bathed" in that temperature (e.g., tossed into cold water at that temperature), the expected survival time would only be a couple of hours or less [ussartf.org].

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sholden ( 12227 )
      Wow you're so tough.

      Of course you could try thinking about what they mean by temperature and by pain. They are using both terms differently than you are.

    • +1 (Score:2)

      by brunes69 ( 86786 )
      I don't really know why the above is modded funny... as a Canadian I agree 100%.

      10 degrees C is not even cold at all. I don't even switch to my fall jacket until the temp. drops to 5C regularly. In fact I have slept outside in a tent in colder weather, with a summer rated sleeping bag.
  • ...that I've been telling my wife for years, that when she's cold (which is always), she just needs some extra "protein."

    Men around the world, rejoice!

    [ducking] ;)
  • Back when I was going to school we were taught that protein was just there to build your body and make it be what it is. Now we're learning on slashdot and otherwise that protein can carry a disease and infect things (BSE) and NOW it can even sense things? WTF, what's happening here? O.o

  • Scientists Identify How the Body Senses Cold (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    ....Nipples?

    They're like pop-up thermometers in reverse. Very handy.
  • This could potentialy be useful. Imagine when they discover the gene for sensing heat. if we could genetically engineer humans to feel 35C to feel like 20. we could solve global warming =D or at least i wouldnt feel so hot right now.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by csubi ( 950112 )

      The gene is called TRPV1 or simply vanilloid receptor, discovered around 1997.

      It is activated by noxious heat - >42C - or by the molecule capsaicin commonly found in hot chili peppers and alike. And yes, if you knock-out this gene the resulting animals show decreased sensitivity to heat

      a very nice example experiment was done with fruit-fly larvae: they normally wriggle away when touched by a hot metallic rod but only stop moving when the rod is at ambient temperature. larvae deprived of the "hot" r

    • It's not a gene that senses cold or heat, but there may be a gene that produces the proteins that senses cold or heat. Just separating the concepts here. It may be seen as nitpicking/details, but can quickly become confusing in a biology discussion. ;-)
  • makes me wonder if you can treat injuries with menthol instead of ice packs since the mice without the protein had less soothing from the cold.

  • Shivers? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Scorchmon ( 305172 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @10:14PM (#19360561)
    I hope with this discovery we can finally start to close in on the actual source behind those confounding piss shivers [wikipedia.org].
    • I thought that was pretty obvious...water conducts heat, right? While piss is stored in your body, it absorbs a bit of your body heat. As you piss, boom, lots of heat going away from your body in the stream. You may (or may not) have noticed that when you piss on a cold day, particularly at night with a street light nearby for good illumination, that there is steam or vapours or something to that effect coming off the stream. At least, I've noticed it. Thats why I generally wait until I can get indoors to t
      • For an anatomy & physiology class once we measured vitamin-c concentration (and output after taking xxx mg's of it at a specified time) for an experiment. We had to pee every half hour (so drank lots of water) and measure the concentration of vitamin-c in our urine each time (to tell how much we were excreting and at what rate -- which differs depending on how much you consume regularly.) Long story short, after peeing so much on a cold day, (after 2.5+ hour lab) by the time we were done we had lost s
    • It's probably not related, since the function of TRPM8 has been known since at least a couple of years back and no one has even associated it with that phenomnenon since then. TRPM8 also use to be more local and direct in nature, and solely for sensory reasons, like when you feel something is cold on your tongue. Not the kind of "chill" from that, and I can understand that, because at least to me, I don't associate that shiver with cold at all. My bets are more on something like dopamine, which is listed in

  • mouse revenge (Score:5, Funny)

    by bl8n8r ( 649187 ) on Friday June 01, 2007 @11:36PM (#19360935)
    "injected their mice with a painful compound, put them on a cold plate and measured the amount of time the mice spent flinching their hind legs in response to the pain. "

    You know, if mice ever undergo a genetic mutation causing them to become a dominant species over us, we are sooooooooo fucked.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by zippthorne ( 748122 )
      I think we made up for it by sticking an electrode in a rat's pleasure center and giving him control over the button.
  • All the article states is that a certain protein has been identified as being crucial to the process. Perhaps this would be sufficient if I were in bio-med, but as it is, I'm not seeing it.
  • Wikipedia has had info on TRPM8 and how it affects cold sensations since mid-2005, and I actually contributed with some content on the subject in the basic taste [wikipedia.org] article in late 2005.
  • to reach these conclusions? Stop animal torture and speciesism.
    • I'll stop supporting animal testing when people like you stop using medicine and knowledge gained by animal testing. My guess is that if you had a life-threatening disease (like Ingrid Newkirk's diabetes) you would not stop treatment to show your support for "animal rights". Do you not take penicillin because it was tested on mice? Would you turn down an organ transplant because that procedure was tested on dogs and pigs? I will personally strangle, freeze, or torture every goddamn mouse on the planet i

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