Did you know that this sixth human sense is rarely mentioned?

If it is often forgotten, science confirms the existence of a sixth sense: proprioception. How does it manifest? We tell you everything!

Have you ever had a “feel” for something? If we often talk about obsession, intuition or even energy, this sensation is actually related to our sixth sense.

In scientific parlance, this is “proprioception,” a term that refers to our ability to perceive, consciously or unconsciously, the movements of our own body (or different parts of our body) and to detect their location in the surrounding space.

This is what allows us, for example, to move around in a darkened room or to precisely relieve the itchy part of the body.

Its role is to gather information from muscles and joints about our movements, posture, and position in space, and then relay it to our central nervous system.explains Professor Niccolo Zampieri, Director of the Laboratory for the Development and Function of Neural Circuits at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin.

Even if at first glance they seem less important than other senses, such as sight or hearing, people who lack them or who have difficulty in operating them can gauge the importance of this handicap.

In fact, they will be able, for example, “Barely getting up to walk”As Jurgen Konczak, a professor at the American University of Minnesota, explains in the magazine Popular Mechanics. “It’s very devastating for people.”And confirms.

Research on proprioceptive deficits is almost at a dead end

This is the case for people with Parkinson’s disease or stroke victims. It then becomes very complicated for them, for example, to assess the mass of the objects around them that they wish to carry, and their ability to weigh them fails.

Dysfunctions for which there is currently no cure, and research on this topic is not very advanced.

However, expert Jürgen Konchak, who is currently working on failed proprioception, hopes that treatments adapted to each patient’s idiosyncrasies will soon be developed to help them become aware of different parts of their bodies.