Why Does Ice Cream Cause Brain Freeze?
It’s summertime. It’s hot outside. You’re hot. Cooling off with an icy indulgence seems like a great idea. But as you stuff that frozen yogurt down your gullet something decidedly unpleasant happens: the dreaded “ice-cream headache.” Why is it that slurping slushies, gobbling gelato, or inhaling Italian ice can cause such wicked, intense bursts of head pain? A surprising number of scientific studies have looked at the cause and prevalence of the phenomena (including at least one in which school children were asked to scarf down ice-cream in the name of scientific discovery). The prevailing theory is that the ice-cream headache sensation results from cold food contacting a nerve-filled area on the roof of your mouth. One of the nerves in this region, the “trigeminal nerve,” is the largest cranial nerve. Its three branches work together to sense and communicate information between the brain and the different areas of the front of the head – including teeth, tongue, and palate.// Though i
