Nature Neuroscience (via the BBC) lets researchers push all the right buttons after they’ve discovered brave new ways to make us feel good:
A team, including scientists from the Unilever company, have identified a class of nerve fibres in the skin which specifically send pleasure messages.
And people had to be stroked at a certain speed – 4-5cm per second – to activate the pleasure sensation.
…
If the stroke was faster or slower than the optimum speed, the touch was not pleasurable and the nerve fibres were not activated.
The scientists also discovered that the C-tactile nerve fibres are only present on hairy skin, and are not found on the hand.