Have you ever question why we cannot tickle ourselves? When we try to touch our own body, the cerebellum monitors the movement. It predicts the sensory consequences of this impending movement and as a result weakens or even eliminates the tickling sensations. Our brains are in fact constructed to hunt for unexpected sensations, a mechanism to protect us against predators from the external and unexpected environment.
The somatosensory cortex and the anterior cingulate are the two regions in the brain that are involved in processing the tickling sensations. A magnetic resonance imaging scan of the brain revealed that when we are tickled by someone else, these two regions reacted much more strongly. This reveals the fact that it does not feel tickly when you tickle yourself, no matter how ticklish you are.
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