Talk:Referred itch

What the heck
Why does the article just randomly start using the term "mitempfindung" in place of the one in the title of the article, without explaining what "mitempfindung" means or where it comes from? I mean yeah, you can find it waaaaay down there in the History section, but why should you need to read that to understand what's being said in the introductory paragraphs of the article? 24.183.229.59 (talk) 04:19, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

I
I edited the second sentence, added by someone else, to make it grammatical; but is there any evidence for its truth? In perusing the two linked sources, I didn't see any support for the sentence.

The sentence reads: "Referred itch" may also refer to the phenomenon in which one feels an itch on one part of the body, but upon attempting to scratch it comes to experience it in a different location, although the scratch on the original part of the body feels like it is successfully targeting the itch.

- SI, Feb. 21, 2007


 * Even in its edited form I don't think the sentence adds anything to the article, and should be removed. Alf Boggis 10:50, 22 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I am one of the original writers of this page. Edits and comments are very welcome as this page in a rough form. Throughout the next 3 weeks it will go through major changes in hopes to attain good article status. Regarding this sentence, I agree it seems unnecessary. Gleasoda (talk) 06:41, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The sentence that needed clarification was edited, so the "clarification needed" subscript was removed. Micahsy (talk) 20:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Fast comments
I have made some general comments for the whole class at User talk:NeuroJoe/BI481 Spring 2011. Please look at them since some are applyable to this article. See some examples below:


 * The Wikipedia manual of style for medicine articles (See WP:MEDMOS) has a proposal of organization into sections for different kind of articles (i.e: recommended sections for an article on a disease, or in an anatomy article, etc.). Following such proposals will make articles consistent with other wikipedia articles, and will also help you to organize them without forgetting important data. Being this article a syndrome it should follow sections for diseases.


 * In this sense some changes should be: moving history to the end of the article, changing prevalence title to epidemiology, combining neurobiology and mechanisms into a pathophisiology section, eliminating the concussions section...
 * A "conclussion" section is great for an essay, but not really suitable for an encyclopedia. It would better be integrated in article or eliminated if present.
 * There are very few links in the article
 * Inline citations in wikipedia go after and not before the full stop of the sentence, there is no space between the full stop and the ref, and after the ref goes a space before the next sentence. A correct example would be "Hello world, I feel great today.[1] Today is sunny."-
 * have you heard of Diberri's template? It is a tool that makes formatting of references in wikipedia really easy (and nicer and more error-free than hand formatting). You search for an article in pubmed (although it also works with isbn numbers and other kind of data), copy the pubmed id, paste it into the tool, check the "add ref tag" and copy and paste the result to the article. For example the pmid for the article "Eye movements in a familial vestibulocerebellar disorder" is 8355816 (See ). I have copied the number into the diberris tool, ticked the add ref tag box, and pasted the result into the vestibulocerebellar syndrome as an example. While not mandatory it might be a good idea than you used this themplate.
 * Citing several times the same reference: When the same reference is cited several times it should appear only once in the references section. See an example on how to do it: before, difference, after. (In this case I only fixed one as an example).

More to come as I have time.--Garrondo (talk) 07:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the advice Garrondo! You are right, we still have to go back and link a lot of terms. Also, we will take your advice on getting rid of the conclusion paragraph. The three of us original authors are first timers at this, so any tips / criticisms are welcome. We are hoping to attain the good article status, so we really appreciate the time you are putting in! You seem like a Wiki veteran, so this is all very helpful! Gleasoda (talk) 06:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Article Comments
Good luck AndyD147 (talk) 04:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with Garrondo that the reference section needs to be cleaned up so that each reference only appears once in the section.
 * Also, there is not enough links to other pages. There is too much assumption that the reader knows each topic that the article is referencing. For example, just quickly glancing through the article, some topics that should be linked should be all medicines, anatomical terms, such as midbrain, lateral spinothalamic tract, and axon, and microbiology terms, such as proteases, cytokines and substance P. These are just some of the topics that need to be linked. In general, any topic that is connected to the understanding of referred itch and has the potential to be unknown to the reader should be linked.
 * I would recommend implementing the sections title changes suggested by Garrondo above with the addition of changing Stressors to Causes.
 * If possible you could also try providing a link to each one of you references that provide an easy way to navigate back to the original source used.
 * I would also suggest adding a few pictures to your article to help add some visual information.
 * I fully agree with comments of AndyD147. If you do not know how to solve some of the technical problems feel free to ask me. Bests.--Garrondo (talk) 06:16, 31 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the comments, AndyD147 and Garrondo. As can be seen, the reference page has been organized and cleaned up some more, and more links for articles and references were added. Glancing through the article again, I agree that many terms were not linked to their approproate Wikipedia page.
 * Regarding the provision of links to references, most of the articles we found were accessed through online databases that our institution is subscribed to, I don't think we can provide a link with easy access.
 * Thank you again for the comments and constructive criticisms, I hope my group members and I have done much to improve from the original draft.

Micahsy (talk) 02:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

BI481 Peer Review
Hey guys, I thought the article included a lot of pertinent information, but I would definitely recommend that it be adjusted so that the page flows better. Overall, Wikipedia tries to be written in a style so that the average user can more or less understand the topic. The introduction does a good job of conveying some of the basic information, but I think the body gets rather complex and does not give enough background to understand the technical information. I would recommend minimizing the amount of scientific jargon if possible, as well as briefly explaining anything that is brought up. You already did this in a few areas using parenthesis, which worked great in those instances. Other than that, a few of the more obscure topics still need links to their respective pages, if possible. Images would be great too, but it's likely you weren't unable to find any. When I was writing the article for my group I looked at some of the "good page" samples on Wikipedia for other biology articles to mimic their balance of detail and general information- you guys may find this helpful also. Another thing is the use of capitalization- I'm pretty sure you don't want to be capitalizing "Mitempfindung" as was done in a few of the sections (namely the introduction). Also, another Wikipedia editor mentioned to me that "conclusion" paragraphs are not often used, so I would consider whether or not you want to keep the one at the bottom of your page. Overall though, the page seemed well researched and adequately sourced, so I would say you guys did a good job covering all the aspects of the topic. At this point it's mostly just issues of writing style more than anything. Pathyland (talk) 15:46, 6 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Pathyland, thank you for taking the time to review the article and making insightful comments and criticism. The authors for the revision of the referred itch article are very new to editing in Wikipedia, and there were many mistakes to be caught. The article was read through by the group again and hopefully our new edits give the article more flow and make it appear less mechanical and unapproachable with the scientific jargon. As for images, while it would definitely be a great addition to the article, there did not seem to be relevant pictures/diagrams that would aid in a reader's understanding of what mitempfindung is. We discussed as a group that images of people itching some part of the body was not conducive to creating a well-written and well-presented article. A lot of the grammar and capitalization mistakes were hopefully caught and corrected, thank you for pointing the error out to us. As a group member has mentioned above, the conclusion section was removed, as it did seem to serve no purpose. Thank you again and as always the authors welcome any and all comments. Micahsy (talk) 03:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Hello. I would like to start by saying that I think this article has very clear and concise paragraphs with quality information. As for modifications, I want to echo some of the comments above to start and just briefly say that the reference page is quite long and that all the references at the ends of sentences are formatted differently. I think both of these issues can be fixed pretty easily. (I think the proper format is to have a period, followed by the reference, followed by a space, and then the next sentence.) Also, I have seen reference pages which have links to PubMed on them. I feel that that would definitely go to making this section look good. Another edit I would consider making is moving the Epidemiology section to after the Causes section and moving the Normal and Pathological Referred Itch section to immediately underneath the Pathophysiology section. I feel like this may help the whole article flow much better. I think that the Normal and Pathological Referred Itch Section is especially helpful in distinguishing the different types of referred itch. I also reiterate the need for an image in this article. It is spaced out nicely, so it is not very dense, but an image would certainly improve it. I know that this may be difficult, since this is a less concrete subject, but I would recommend searching through some of the articles in the reference section. They are bound to have an interesting, usable image to describe this phenomena. I would also recommend looking through the article one more time for words that should be liked. I do not feel the article is overlinked or underlinked, but some words such as histamine or opioid may have been linked and probably should be. I hope this has been somewhat helpful. Sean J. Dikdan (talk) 21:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Hi Sean J. Dikdan, thank you for taking the time to look through the article and offer helpful suggestions. We have gotten many comments on the reference page, and I am happy to say that the authors have adjusted the reference page to make it appear more organized and even added some more secondary sources. Unfortunately, many of our references (especially the primary sources) were found through online databases that our institution is subscribed to, so we can't easily link readers to the references. The epidemiology section remained on top of the causes section because it mostly involved prevalence and briefly explained the variability among those affected. The later sections got more in depth with mechanisms and specific causes, so it seemed right to place the section right below the introduction. Another user has suggested adding an image, and as a group, we all agree on that point. However, we found no images that we deemed relevant or would aid readers and understanding the phenomena any better. As suggested, more links to other Wikipedia pages were added, and missed grammatical and spelling errors were corrected. Thank you again, and hopefully our edits have helped improve the article. Micahsy (talk) 03:54, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

This article is quite informative given the paucity of information that exists on referred itch. There is good use of a neutral tone. However, I have a few comments regarding grammar, structure, and Wikipedia conventions. First of all, there are numerous instances of unnecessary capitalization. Besides proper nouns, only first words in titles or sentences should be capitalized. For example, "Mitempfindung" does not have to be capitalized in the middle of a sentence. Same thing goes for section titles - only the first word is capitalized according to Wikipedia convention. In addition, there are a couple of spelling errors such as "pathophisiology" and the misuse of "illicit." Also check the spelling for "pruritoceptic" because when you linked it, it came out red, meaning that there is no page in existence for it on Wikipedia. Grammatically speaking, rethink starting sentences with "And" or "With" as that is not really correct grammar. Look out for sentences that lack periods at the end. When citing 2 or more references in a row, I don't think it's necessary to put a semicolon in between them. It may be easier to take advantage of the citation templates when inserting citations, as they will automatically link the source's web address and title to the actual source; try to explore that when you are in the Edit tab. Also, when you want to cite the same source more than once, it is not necessary to repeat the exact same code every time. In the citation templates, there is a field for "ref name" - the first time you cite a source, you can attribute a sort of 'nickname' to the source that can be used in a shorter code each subsequent time you cite the same source. For example, you can make the ref name for one article something like "itch" when you put it in the template for the original citation, and then every time you want to cite the same reference after that, you can type in a shorter code when you edit (look it up on Help to find how), and that will automatically cite the same source. Explore the edit feature with this to make sure it makes sense to you. When you are able to do this, you will not get duplicate references for the same articles - instead of having ~50 citations you will end up with probably fewer than 20. I worry that a lot of your sources are primary literature papers, meaning that they are primary sources and not secondary - search for more secondary/tertiary sources such as review articles, books, or textbooks. Contentwise, I wonder if you could expand on the proposed mechanism about the peripheral nerves - why exactly is it unlikely? Finally, it may be useful to clarify or explain in more detail "Amazonian medine sangre de grado" to shed light on its significance. Sorry for the rambling, but I hope you find this useful and let me know if you need more help with the citation conventions. I appreciate the information you are presenting so far because I believe that the nature of this phenomenon may make it difficult to find a lot of conclusive data. Keep up the good work! -- JCal2011 (talk) 22:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)
 * JCal2011, thank you for the comments and very helpful suggestions. The grammar mistakes and linking to other Wikipedia pages were mentioned before and were corrected as soon as possible. Hopefully, the authors have caught all of them and the flow of the article has greatly improved. For the linking error with "pruritoceptic", apparently a Wikipedia page for the subject does not exist, so the link was removed. Also, your suggestions for how to cite references were a great help, and we used them so thank you very much for guiding us in the right direction. We acknowledge that most of our references were primary sources, and we have searched for some secondary sources and added a few. The mechanism on the peripheral nerve and its branches was elaborated on. It was really a writing mistake on my part; I had separated the sentence with the one about embryology (the two were linked). The phrase "Amazonian medine sangre de grado" was removed, as after more research it seemed to give no further understanding or relevance to the topic. Thank you again, and hopefully the edits have improved the page. Micahsy (talk) 04:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I’m happy to say that this article has come a long way since the new revisions. You have an excellent amount of scientific information here. However, if you wish to make it go from being a “stub class” article to a higher level then I suggest that you do a little more clarification with the scientific jargon. Most good scientific wiki pages are written in some fashion that your average layperson can understand without prior scientific knowledge. Therefore, I suggest simplifying the section entitled “Pathophisiology”. First off, the word is misspelled and should be spelled pathophysiology. Next, I would simplify or add more hyperlinks to the beginning few sentences of that section where you say “Once stimulated, usually by histamine within the body… or in response to the presence of excess opioids”. You do a good job explaining what specific scientific words mean in brackets, however, even the words in the brackets are very dense scientific terms. Because your article is pertinent to human sensation, I would suggest giving a brief and general synopsis about human sensation and touch. In other words, your article on referred itch is a very specific point in terms of sensation. You also mention the term ‘trigger zones’ in several areas of the article without actually explaining what they are or put them in context. Again, I stress the use of hyperlinks and simplification. In the ‘causes’ section you refer to the body’s release of histamine. I would hyperlink this word. Lastly, I would suggest adding a section that explains the implications of “referred itch”, such as, why is this article important to the world of medicine? What future research or connections can be draw from such knowledge about referred itch? So far so good! You have a lot of great information and detail; it just comes down to simplifying them. Keep up the good work. Kevin Pádraic (talk) 02:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the suggestions and comments! The errors that were pointed out were fixed and as stated before by other users, much of the hard scientific terms were further explained or more links to separate Wikipedia pages were added. Micahsy (talk) 04:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

It's clear that you guys have gathered a lot of information about the topic, and I think you've done a great job expanding the article thus far. At this point, I think you should focus on organization and Wiki formatting. First, I think you should fine tune the introduction so that it is clear and concise. Some of the information about symptoms and research should be included in later sections of the article (maybe look at the format for the pages of other medical conditions). You could probably eliminate the last sentence all together, because much of this information will be conveyed in your reference section and in the current research section. Next, I think the mechanisms section will be especially important to expand upon in order to make a stronger article. My group encountered a lot of frustration with competing theories and lack of empirical studies that explain our phenomenon (synaptic gating). I think the best way to combat a limited pool of information is to explain thoroughly and in more common language all of theories that exist. Remember, it's not your job to figure out the "right" answer, all you have to do is provide any important information that exists on the topic. Finally, I would take a look at how you use information from different sources--you shouldn't have to use the researcher's name (for example, when you use Sterling under epidemiology or Evans under mechanisms) as long as you cite the source of the information. For example, instead of saying "Mittelmann (1920) has reported that 8 out of 9 people questioned experienced referred sensations" you could say "Studies have shown that as many as 8 out of 9 people experience referred sensations" and then cite Mittlemann's article. Anyway, most of these suggestions are sylistic, but I think you guys are definitely on the right track. Hope this helps! Stempera (talk) 04:11, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Stempera, thank you for reading through the article and providing constructive criticism and useful insights. A lot of the organization and formatting problems have been addressed and the mechanisms section was expanded or elaborated on so hopefully the information comes out clearer for the reader. I did remove most of the mentions of researchers in the article, but I did keep one: the scientist who was the first to record or observe the phenomenon. Thank you! Micahsy (talk) 04:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

This article was very clear and informative. Great job sifting through your sources to pull out facts on what may have little to no information on the subject. As some of the other peer reviews mention, the grammar and the random capitalization does distract the reader from comprehending the literature. Try to read it out loud to one of your partners because I know sometimes when I proof read i skip over extra words that shouldn't even be there or are missing entirely. I suggest that instead of listing an authors name when citing just state the facts in the neutral voice. Also, in a casual setting, the parenthesis do a great job explaining, but I am not sure if they are up to wikipedia's standards. I am probably wrong but, rewording the sentences without the parenthesis may make it seem more professional. In terms of content, I think you guys did a great job nailing what topics to cover but I would suggest moving the history towards the top to provide a better sense of flow to the page. Also, under mechanisms I felt that they were a bit contradictory. The word theory implies that it has yet to be proven false. I think the more appropriate term would be hypothesis when mentioning the different proposed ideas. I was very intrigued by the discussion between Synesthesia and Mitempfindung. I would have liked to see more comparisons or more evidence as to why they may be linked/similar. Also, don't forget to consolidate your sources so that the identical ones aren't listed as new sources. Some of the other comments I wanted to make have already been suggested so I hope my advice could help in some way. Good luck with the rest of the project! Bazoberr (talk) 07:45, 8 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Bazoberr, thank you for the comments and suggestions. All capitalization and grammar errors were caught and corrected and the article was read through to improve the flow of the article. And thank you for pointing out the "theory" contradiction under mechanisms, I followed your suggestion and changed the term to hypotheses. For the link between synesthesia and referred itch, however, there was only one published article on the similarities, so further expansion was not possible. Thank you again, you have helped my group improve on the article! Micahsy (talk) 04:23, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

End of Boston College BI481 Project
Hi guys, nice job with the article, it's in much better shape than before. A few points: NeuroJoe (talk) 22:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The referred itch diagram you have included doesn't have the correct permission attributes. It's an image, not software. You can't use it unless you get explicit permission from the British Medical Journal. If you don't already have that permission and indicate it properly, it will be deleted soon.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by NeuroJoe (talk • contribs) 23:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I mentioned early on to not include external links that are not worked into the article itself. If they're that important they should be cited in your discussion of the topic.
 * The references should be linked to the external sources using the referencing tool I mentioned earlier in the semester.
 * In the article you switch back and forth between using the term mitempfindung and referred itch. Try to pick one after introducing them and keep it consistent thereafter.

Duplicate content
Either I'm reading this incorrectly, or there appears to be duplicate content in the "Mechanisms" section. Specifically, The 6th paragraph appears to be an unrevised copy of the 2nd paragraph. Mmseng (talk) 04:41, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Dispute from acupuncture spilling out to this article
I have been trying to incorporate new research regarding the scientific basis of acupuncture into relevant pages. One of the users that has been opposing me is @User:2over0. In this edit, removed accurate information that improves the article. This is clearly unacceptable and should not be tolerated. - Technophant (talk) 04:02, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * There are problems with using primary/poor sources. QuackGuru  ( talk ) 05:02, 20 July 2014 (UTC)
 * "Do acupuncture meridians exist?" is a primary source (research paper), "Referred itch and meridians" is a secondary source (anaylysis/synthesis) without research data and summary conclusions. Both are reliable and published in reputable publications. @User:QuackGuru, could you explain what you mean by "poor"? - Technophant (talk) 05:20, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Yup high quality secondary sources like review articles are needed. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your page reply on mine) 12:51, 20 July 2014 (UTC)

Apologies if revert created more work
I apologize if my revert resulted in extra work in cleaning up this article and appreciate the hard work of other editors to improve this article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 14:57, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

History: "Kowalewsky"
Who is Kowalewsky? This person has been referred to since the article was created, but with no explanation of who he is. The link goes to the page for the surname, not the person. 184.67.135.194 (talk) 19:10, 11 October 2022 (UTC)