What's going on with brain freeze?

June 7, 2019 / BIOON / - Australia has experienced the hottest summer on record Many people may gobble up an ice cream, and may eat it too fast After doing so, you may feel, unfortunately, a strong crush or tingle on your forehead, temple or back of your head This is the brain freeze, also known as "ice cream headache." So, you will think that brain freezing is just a headache! Photo source: http://cn.bing.com of course you are right But the brain freezes a little bit Although you do put ice cream in your head (strictly speaking, your mouth is part of your brain), you don't usually put it in the part of your brain that gets hurt when you experience a brain freeze Putting ice cream in your forehead or temple will be a very strange procedure I don't recommend you try it at home or anywhere else It's also hard to imagine that this is medically necessary, so it seems unlikely to be used in Medicare So why are your forehead and temples (or even the back of your head) hurt by eating ice cream too fast? There are many different opinions about the cause, but the answer must have something to do with what happens when we cool our upper jaw When you cool your palate, the nerve cells that live there sense the cold, and their job is to detect it This information about cold is transmitted to your brain through nerves When your jaw is cold, these cells (and nerves) are very active Photo source: http://cn.bing.com now, this nerve also contains information from other cells, including those that detect cold and pain stimuli from other parts of your head, including your face Maybe (we're not sure) when the cells at the top of your mouth that feel cold are very active, it also activates in some way the brain regions that are usually activated by facial cells As a result, the cold makes your brain mistakenly think that your forehead is hurt Another possibility is that when delicious frozen food cools our tongue and mouth quickly, it actually cools the blood in the blood vessels that supply your head's blood The response of these vessels is to change the amount of blood flowing into the brain In fact, only a few scientists have tried to measure this number, and those scientists even disagree about whether you have more or less blood in your brain However, everyone thinks it hurts This could be a combination of two things: activation of the nerves causes changes in the amount of blood entering your brain It may even be a combination of both! Why don't we know how the brain freezes? "Brain freeze" is a wonderful question for a strange scientist, but to get the answer, scientists need to convince others (politicians, other scientists and the public), they should consider the time and money needed to answer this question Unfortunately, the time and money available are not as endless as the curiosity of scientists Photo source: the result of http://cn.bing.com is, sometimes, some simple and beautiful questions, such as "what is brain freeze? "Not as much attention as other seemingly more pressing issues Instead, these beautiful questions are like a scoop of ice cream loosened by a passionate but careless scientist who may not have the time or resources to study brain freezing in the laboratory, but in any case, he will discuss it excitedly while eating ice cream with a friend My advice? Keep curious Have ice cream Slow Reference: [1] cultural Kids: what is brain free? 【2】Melissa Mary Blatt et al Cerebral Vascular Blood Flow Changes During 'Brain Freeze" The FASEB Journal 2012 【3】Bird N et al Ice cream headache--site， duration， and relationship to migraine Headache 1992 Jan；32(1)：35-8 【4】 2018-19 was Australia's hottest summer on record， with a warm autumn likely too 【5】 What Causes Brain Freeze？ 【6】 cold-stimulus headache