Free Flow of Sweat due to Loss of Surface Tension at Sweat Droplet Causes Water-Induced Skin Wrinkling
1
Senior, Wayzata High School, Plymouth, MN, United States
2
Independent Scientist, Plymouth, MN, United States
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Anatomy and Physiology, Dermatology, Neurology
- Keywords
- water immersion skin wrinkling, vasoconstriction, homeostasis, surface tension, Cystic Fibrosis, sweat droplet
- Copyright
- © 2013 Marasakatla et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Cite this article
- 2013. Free Flow of Sweat due to Loss of Surface Tension at Sweat Droplet Causes Water-Induced Skin Wrinkling. PeerJ PrePrints 1:e57v2 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.57v2
Abstract
Water immersion skin wrinkling appears to be a result of breaking the balance between the pressure within sweat duct and the pressure exerted by the surface tension of sweat droplet at the pore. When a hand is immersed in water, sweat droplets easily merge within the water causing pressure to drop at the pores. The resulted imbalance in pressure makes the sweat within the duct to flow freely into the water. To prevent loss of water from the body and to maintain homeostasis, the body reacts by restricting blood flow to hand causing vasoconstriction and eventual wrinkling of skin.