The regional distribution of emotional sweating in man

Abstract

SUMMARY1. Emotional sweating was induced in normal subjects by mental arithmetic at environmental temperatures of 29 and 260 C and estimated from continuous records of body weight loss.2. The sweat output from four independent regions of the body -(a) the head and neck, (b) the arms and legs, (c) the trunk, and (d) the hands and feet -was studied separately, the remainder of the body being covered in each case by plastic bags. The evaporative water loss from each skin region increased markedly during mental arithmetic.3. The sweat contribution from each region was a substantial fraction of the total body sweat response and appeared to be roughly proportional to the calculated number of sweat glands in each region.4. There is no evidence from these experiments to indicate that the sweat glands of the skin of the hands and feet behave differently to those of the skin of the rest of the body in response to emotional stress.

A Wearable Sensor for Unobtrusive, Long-Term Assessment of Electrodermal Activity

“…Therefore, these recordings merely demonstrate changes in EDA under different stressors. Emotional sweating (increased sweat gland activity as a concomitant of psychological, and especially, emotional states) has been observed mainly on palmar and plantar sites, but the specificity of emotional sweating remains in question [37]. Our findings indicate that the ventral sides of the distal forearms can also produce sweat responses to emotional stimuli.…”

Thermal Influence on Palmar Sweating and Mental Influence on Generalized Sweating in Man

“…Even in a temperate environment, however, neural impulses for thermal sweating still reach the sweat glands and mental effects can be visualized on a focal area where local sweating has been provoked by a suforific agent (KENNARD, 1963;OGAWA, 1970;OGAWA and BULLARD, 1972). Furthermore, a small number of functional sweat glands have been detected on the general body surface in a temperate environment (RANDALL, 1946;NAKAYAMA and ARIMURA, 1955), and it has also been reported that there are no significant regional differences in sweat responses to emotional stimuli within the comfort zone (ALLEN et al, 1973). At a lower temperature, sweat response of the palm is no longer noted (KuNo, 1956), or no neural impulse reaches the sweat glands of the general body surface (OGAWA and BULLARD, 1972).…”

Communications

“…Traditionally, the glands of the palms and soles were thought to respond only to mental stimuli and the glands of the rest of the body only to thermal stimuli (Kuno, 1956). However, Allen, Armstrong & Roddie (1973) showed that sweat glands of all regions responded * M.R.C. Scholar.…”