Touch from Sight

It was discovered that a gene that controls lens development in the eye of both humans and mice also takes part in our sense of touch. Neurobiologists used mice and found that when the c-Maf was removed, their sense of touch had been interfered with. Humans with a defective c-Maf gene tend to have cataracts at a young age as well as an impaired sense of touch. Professor Birchmeier explains that c-Maf is the key player in the development of peripheral nerve cells as well as in lens development. Axons formed by nerve cells, detect mechanical stimuli which turn into signals that are then sent to the brain. Mice with this mutant gene aren’t able to detect high frequency vibrations due to a lack of Pacinian corpuscles, much like a family from Switzerland that suffer from cataracts and have the impaired sense of touch.