goose bumps

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goose bumps

As a goose bumps (also: chicken skin or Hinkel skin , medical: piloerection , lat .: cutis anserina ) refers to the typical image of an upright body hair and small elevations of the skin surface especially on arms and legs , that the sight of a plucked goose is similar. The cause of goose bumps in humans has not yet been fully clarified.

designation

A term for this phenomenon with reference to geese can also be found in English (goose bumps), Italian (pelle d'oca), Russian (гусиная кожа), Polish (gęsia skórka), Czech (husí kůže), Danish (gåsehud), Latvian (zosāda) and Hungarian (libabőr).

In France (Chair de poule), Spain (Piel de gallina), Romania (piele de găină), the Netherlands (kippevel) and Switzerland, the phenomenon is also known as chicken skin . In Graubünden (Switzerland), Vorarlberg (Austria), the Allgäu and Chiemgau (southern Bavaria), chicken skin is used. In the region around Vienna the name is slightly varied to goose skin . The goosebumps are sometimes referred to colloquially as a chicken costume or bumblebee tits .

Impact and possible causes

When it is cold ( trembling ), fear or excitement , the hair follicle muscle (Latin arrector pili) contracts, controlled by the autonomic nervous system , so that the hair follicle rises above the surface of the skin and the hair straightens (medical term piloerection). This is to trap more air between the hair. Goose bumps cannot develop on generally hairless areas of skin, such as the soles of the feet and palms. Regions with even only minimal or very rudimentary hairiness, on the other hand, show this very clear reaction under the appropriate conditions.

Goosebumps occur when you are touched by a positive moment or an emotional experience , such as a piece of music or a cheering crowd.

Goosebumps can also arise during rigor mortis . The cause is a preserved excitability of the arrectores pilorum muscles.

See also

Web links

Commons : Goosebumps  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wiktionary: Goosebumps  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Chicken skin  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Wiktionary: Hinkelshaut  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Researchers are on the trail of the goosebumps riddle . Article in Die Welt , accessed August 8, 2013.
  2. Burkhard Madea, Reinhard Dettmeyer: basic knowledge forensic medicine. 1st edition. Springer-Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-540-71428-6 , p. 73.