Cutaneous Warm and Cool Sensation Thresholds and the Inter-threshold Zone in Malaysian and Japanese Males

✍ Scribed by Joo-Young Lee; Mohamed Saat; Chinmei Chou; Nobuko Hashiguchi; Titis Wijayanto; Hitoshi Wakabayashi; Yutaka Tochihara

• Book ID: 104035132
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 371 KB
• Volume: 35
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0306-4565
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2009.11.002

✦ Synopsis

The purpose of this study was to investigate ethnic differences in cutaneous thermal sensation thresholds and the inter-threshold sensory zone between tropical (Malaysians) and temperate natives (Japanese). The results showed that (1) Malaysian males perceived warmth on the forehead at a higher skin temperature (T sk ) than Japanese males (po 0.05), whereas cool sensations on the hand and foot were perceived at a lower T sk in Malaysians (p o 0.05); (2) Overall, the sensitivity to detect warmth was greater in Japanese than in Malaysian males; (3) The most thermally sensitive body region of Japanese was the forehead for both warming and cooling, while the regional thermal sensitivity of Malaysians had a smaller differential than that of Japanese; (4) The ethnic difference in the inter-threshold sensory zone was particularly noticeable on the forehead (1.9 7 1.2 C for Japanese, 3.2 7 1.6 1C for Malaysians, po 0.05). In conclusion, tropical natives had a tendency to perceive warmth at a higher T sk and slower at an identical speed of warming, and had a wider range of the inter-threshold sensory zone than temperate natives.