Goose bumps, goosebumps or goose pimples are the bumps on a person's skin at the base of body hairs which may involuntarily develop when a person is tickled,

cold Cold is the presence of low temperature, especially in the atmosphere. In common usage, cold is often a subjectivity, subjective perception. A lower bound to temperature is absolute zero, defined as 0.00K on the Kelvin scale, an absolute t ...

or experiencing strong emotions such as

fear Fear is an unpleasant emotion that arises in response to perception, perceived dangers or threats. Fear causes physiological and psychological changes. It may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the ...

euphoria Euphoria ( ) is the experience (or affect) of pleasure or excitement and intense feelings of well-being and happiness. Certain natural rewards and social activities, such as aerobic exercise, laughter, listening to or making music and da ...

sexual arousal Sexual arousal (also known as sexual excitement) describes the Physiology, physiological and psychological responses in preparation for sexual intercourse or when exposed to Sexual stimulation, sexual stimuli. A number of physiological response ...

. The formation of goose bumps in humans under stress is considered by some to be a vestigial reflex, though visible piloerection is associated with changes in skin temperature in humans. The reflex of producing goose bumps is known as piloerection or the pilomotor reflex, or, more traditionally, horripilation. It occurs in many

mammal A mammal () is a vertebrate animal of the Class (biology), class Mammalia (). Mammals are characterised by the presence of milk-producing mammary glands for feeding their young, a broad neocortex region of the brain, fur or hair, and three ...

s; a prominent example is

porcupine Porcupines are large rodents with coats of sharp Spine (zoology), spines, or quills, that protect them against predation. The term covers two Family (biology), families of animals: the Old World porcupines of the family Hystricidae, and the New ...

s, which raise their quills when threatened, or sea otters when they encounter sharks or other predators.

Anatomy and biology

Goose bumps are created when tiny muscles at the base of each hair, known as '' arrector pili muscles'', contract and pull the hair straight up. The reflex is started by the

sympathetic nervous system The sympathetic nervous system (SNS or SANS, sympathetic autonomic nervous system, to differentiate it from the somatic nervous system) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous sy ...

, which is responsible for many

fight-or-flight response The fight-or-flight or the fight-flight-freeze-or-fawn (also called hyperarousal or the acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. It was first describ ...

s. The muscle cells connected to the hair follicle have been visualized by actin immunofluorescence. Arrector pili muscle Arrector pili muscles (APM) are smooth muscles which connect the basement membrane to the hair follicle. When these muscles contract, they increase the trapping of air on the surface of the skin and in turn, causes

thermoregulation Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature ...

to the body. It used to be believed that each APM was connected to an individual

hair follicle The hair follicle is an organ found in mammalian skin. It resides in the dermal layer of the skin and is made up of 20 different cell types, each with distinct functions. The hair follicle regulates hair growth via a complex interaction betwee ...

. More recent studies have disproved this and now explain that there can be multiple hair follicles connected to a single APM. In between the hair follicle and the APM there are lobules which form an angular shape. These lobules are sebaceous gland lobules which are supported by the APM. PilioerectionAnimation

Hair follicle Hair follicles have four parts. There is the bulb, supra bulbar area, isthmus and infundibulum. The bulb is to be known as the part that is responsible for the growth of the rest of the hair follicle.

As a response to cold

In animals covered with fur or hair, the erect hairs trap air to create a layer of insulation. Goose bumps can also be a response to anger or fear: the erect hairs make the animal appear larger, in order to intimidate enemies. This can be observed in the intimidation displays of chimpanzees, some

New World monkey New World monkeys are the five families of primates that are found in the tropical regions of Mexico, Central and South America: Callitrichidae, Cebidae, Aotidae, Pitheciidae, and Atelidae. The five families are ranked together as the Ceboi ...

s like the

cotton-top tamarin The cotton-top tamarin (''Saguinus oedipus'') is a small New World monkey weighing less than . This New World monkey can live up to 24 years, but most of them die by 13 years. One of the smallest primates, the cotton-top tamarin is easily reco ...

,French and Snowdon.

Sexual dimorphism Sexual dimorphism is the condition where sexes of the same species exhibit different Morphology (biology), morphological characteristics, including characteristics not directly involved in reproduction. The condition occurs in most dioecy, di ...

in responses to unfamiliar intruders in the tamarin, '' Saguinus oedipus''. Animal Behaviour (1981) vol. 29 (3) pp. 822–829 in stressed mice and rats, and in frightened cats.

In humans

In humans, goose bumps can even extend to piloerection as a reaction to hearing nails scratch on a chalkboard, or feeling or remembering strong and positive emotions (e.g., after winning a sports event), or while watching a

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

Some people can deliberately evoke goose bumps in themselves without any external trigger. This is called "voluntarily generated piloerection." Further research is needed to discover more on such people. Goose bumps are accompanied by a specific physiological response pattern that is thought to indicate the emotional state of being moved. In humans, goose bumps occur everywhere on the body, including the legs, neck, and other areas of the skin that have hair. In some people, they even occur in the face or on the head. In humans, goose bumps tends to occur across the whole body, especially when elicited by thermal or emotional stimuli, and only locally when elicited via tactile stimuli. Piloerection is also a classic symptom of some diseases, such as

temporal lobe epilepsy In the field of neurology, temporal lobe epilepsy is an enduring brain disorder that causes unprovoked seizures from the temporal lobe. Temporal lobe epilepsy is the most common type of focal onset epilepsy among adults. Seizure symptoms and b ...

, some

brain tumor A brain tumor (sometimes referred to as brain cancer) occurs when a group of cells within the Human brain, brain turn cancerous and grow out of control, creating a mass. There are two main types of tumors: malignant (cancerous) tumors and benign ...

s, and autonomic hyperreflexia. Goose bumps can also be caused by withdrawal from

opiate An opiate is an alkaloid substance derived from opium (or poppy straw). It differs from the similar term ''opioid'' in that the latter is used to designate all substances, both natural and synthetic, that bind to opioid receptors in the brain ( ...

s such as

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a morphinan opioid substance synthesized from the Opium, dried latex of the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy; it is mainly used as a recreational drug for its eupho ...

. A skin condition that mimics goose bumps in appearance is

keratosis pilaris Keratosis pilaris (KP; also follicular keratosis, lichen pilaris, or colloquially chicken skin.) is a common, autosomal- dominant, genetic condition of the skin's hair follicles characterized by the appearance of possibly itchy, small, goosefl ...

Causes

Extreme temperatures

Goose bumps can be experienced in the presence of flash-cold temperatures, for example being in a cold environment, and the skin being able to re-balance its surface temperature quickly. The stimulus of cold surroundings causes the tiny muscles ( arrector pili muscle) attached to each

to contract. This contraction causes the hair strands to stand straight, the purpose of which is to aid in quicker drying via evaporation of water clinging to the hair which is moved upward and away from the skin.

Intense emotion

The emotional correlates of piloerection in humans are not well understood. People often say they feel their "hair standing on end" when they are frightened or in awe.

Music

Most research using musical stimuli has focused on self-reported "chills" which is a subjective experience, unlike piloerection which is an objectively quantifiable physiological reaction. However, research has shown that self-reported piloerection does not correspond to observed piloerection. Thus, research on the chills should not be considered to extend to the physiological phenomena of piloerection.

Ingestion

Medications and herbal supplements that affect body temperature and blood flow may cause piloerection. For example, one of the common reported side effects of the intake of yohimbine is piloerection.

Opiate withdrawal

Piloerection is one of the signs of opioid withdrawal. The term " cold turkey" meaning abrupt withdrawal from a drug, may derive from the goose bumps that occur during abrupt withdrawal from

opioid Opioids are a class of Drug, drugs that derive from, or mimic, natural substances found in the Papaver somniferum, opium poppy plant. Opioids work on opioid receptors in the brain and other organs to produce a variety of morphine-like effects, ...

s; this resembles the skin of a refrigerated plucked turkey.

Voluntary control

An unknown proportion of people may consciously initiate the sensation and physiological signs of piloerection. The phenomenon is discovered spontaneously, appearing to be innate, and is not known to be possible to learn or acquire. Those with the ability frequently are unaware that it is not possible for everyone. The ability appears to correlate with personality traits associated with

openness to experience Openness to experience is one of the domains which are used to describe personality psychology, human personality in the Big Five personality traits, Five Factor Model. Openness involves six Facet (psychology), facets, or dimensions: active imagina ...

Etymology

The term "goose bumps" derives from the phenomenon's association with goose skin. Goose feathers grow from pores in the epidermis that resemble human

s. When a goose's feathers are plucked, its skin has protrusions where the feathers were, and these bumps are what the human phenomenon resembles. It is not clear why the particular fowl, goose, was chosen in English (and German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Polish and Czech) Translations for ''goose-bumps'' in English wiktionary as most other birds share this same anatomical feature. Other languages may use a different species. For example, the hen or chicken is used in Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese, Cantonese, Finnish, Dutch, Luxembourgish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and Galician; Irish uses both; Hebrew, the duck; the ants (referred to as "''murashki''", alluding to the feeling of ants crawling on one's skin) in Ukrainian and Russian; and a variety of synonyms in Mandarin. Some authors have applied "goose bumps" to the symptoms of

sexually transmitted diseases A sexually transmitted infection (STI), also referred to as a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and the older term venereal disease (VD), is an infection that is spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, oral ...

. "Bitten by a Winchester goose" was a common euphemism for having contracted

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent syphilis, latent or tertiary. The prim ...

in the 16th century. " Winchester geese" was the nickname for the prostitutes of Southern London, licensed by the

Bishop of Winchester The Bishop of Winchester is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Winchester in the Church of England. The bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is at Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. The Bishop of Winchester has always held ''ex officio'' the offic ...

in the area around his London palace.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goose Bumps Skin physiology Reflexes