If you’ve ever noticed your skin crawling during a stressful moment, you’re not imagining it.
Indian scientists have made a connection between stress and itching in human beings. The team of scientists has found the brain circuit behind it, and the discovery could potentially change how we treat chronic itch.
WHAT DID RESEARCHERS FIND?
A team at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has mapped a specific neural circuit in the brain that controls the relationship between stress and itch.
Their findings, published in the journal Cell Reports, show that certain neurons activated during stress can directly dial down the urge to scratch.
The study focused on a region called the lateral hypothalamic area (LHA). It is a part of the brain that governs stress, motivation, and emotions.
Using genetically engineered mice, the researchers pinpointed a specific cluster of neurons in the LHA that switch on during acute, or short-term, stress.
HOW IS STRESS LINKED TO ITCHING?
The most unexpected finding was that high levels of stress can result in reduced itching, at least in the short term.
“We ran some pilot experiments, and we saw that surprisingly, acute stress was able to suppress acute itching,” said Jagat Narayan Prajapati, PhD student at the Centre for Neuroscience (CNS), IISc, and first author of the study.
When the team artificially activated these stress neurons, mice scratched significantly less, both in chemically induced itch and in a psoriasis-like chronic itch model.
When the neurons are switched off, stress no longer reduced scratching at all, confirming these neurons are essential to the process.
But there’s a catch.
While short-term stress can suppress itching, chronic stress does the opposite.
In mice modelling psoriasis-like conditions, the same stress-sensitive neurons became overactive and altered their behaviour — actually making itch worse over time.
“Most current treatments for chronic itch are peripheral — they treat the symptoms, not the cause. But the interaction between stress, anxiety, and sensations like itch happens in the brain,” said Arnab Barik, assistant professor at CNS and corresponding author of the study.
DOES THE RELATION BETWEEN STRESS AND SCRATCH MATTER?
Chronic itch affects millions globally, and existing therapies mostly target the skin or immune system.
This research opens a new frontier.
“By identifying the specific neural circuit that links stress to itch, we are opening the possibility of targeting these brain mechanisms to better manage chronic stress-induced worsening of itch,” Barik added.
The team now plans to study the molecular makeup of these neurons and track how stress circuits shift in long-term disease conditions. It is a step that could eventually lead to brain-targeted therapies for chronic itch.
