The Itch is an arti­cle from The New Yorker on the neu­rol­ogy behind that annoy­ing sen­sa­tion we’ve all had.

I warn you, the arti­cle is quite icky in places, with a par­tic­u­larly stom­ach churn­ing case study in one place, but I was quite fas­ci­nated to find out that the sen­sa­tion of the itch seems to rely on itch ded­i­cated nerve cells, dis­tinct from the nerves that trans­mit pain.

One of the most inter­est­ing things is that itch seems to be one of the sen­sa­tions most sen­si­tive to psy­cho­log­i­cal state. For exam­ple, I guar­an­tee you’ll feel more itchy just read­ing the arti­cle (and prob­a­bly already read­ing this).

via Mind Hacks

Edit: Kot­tke has writ­ten a good review of the arti­cle that is worth your time.