I’ve recently got into ancestry in the past couple years, and found something interesting. It will actually inform you if you’re more or less likely to be ticklish based on DNA and genetics. Ticklishness is 4 percent genetic, and 96 percent environmental, and ancestry scientists found 4,590 dna markers related to being ticklish. I don’t know how accurate it is, but mine is definitely accurate 🫣 just wanted to share because the science of tickling is very fascinating to me!
96% environmental?! You’re kidding! Obviously there’s a psychological aspect too (people act more ticklish & laugh harder when tickled by a loved one vs tickled by a stranger), but I assumed it was mostly genetic, affected to a degree by environmental upbringing, climate, family interactions, etc. So you could, theoretically, engineer scenarios to make people more or less ticklish…
Hmmmmmmmmmmm…..
This IS fascinating. I must file this research away for later.
PS. I appreciate how you once commented on my post something along the lines of “I’m not even especially involved in the tickling community, but” and now your bio reads “mostly tickling content.” Welcome to the club. 😂
