Introduction
We see us or others blush from time to time depending on thesituation. It is a signal for people of someone’s experiencing certain emotions in different situations. That is, people experiencing blushing often feel awkwardness, anger, fear, guilt, or shame [1]. Besides, blushing can occur during illnesses such as fever, or a cold. However, this type of blushing happens due to known physiological conditions when our organism fights against pathogens by raising body temperature, thus causing our face to blush [2].
In this paper, we will examine why we blush when we are healthy and when the reasons may be rather psychosocial.
What plays a role in a blushing occurrence?
Figure 1. Blushing – wide-spread event among people [1]
Blushing mechanism fundamentally binds to activity of brain neurons and blood vessels involved in enhancing the body temperature on the whole. For example, glutamatergic neurons of hypothalamus and raphe nuclei (especially, the raphe pallidus nucleus) respond to various stress factors by regulating the organism’s temperature [2,3]. These two structures share the same pathway through projections to the raphe pallidus nucleus.After the stress factors affecting the organism, the glutamatergic neurons stimulate blood flow to increase, while the nucleus influences brown adipose tissues, thus activating them. Then, heart rate increases, more heat generates. By these processes and the vessels dilation, the temperature of the body rises [2].
Also, in definite situations, when one gets embarrassed by watching oneself, cerebellum and paracentral lobule participation is identified. The first is in charge of paying attention to oneself, and the second one controls sensorimotor part of the blushing. Besides, the brain regions of salience and emotional arousal contribute to self-observation-inducedblushing [3].
Blushing regions
Usually, the blushing affects the cheeks, forehead, chin, nose,and periorbital area [1,3].
When receiving compliments, the nose and the periorbital area are sole ones which do not blush, whereas the forehead and the cheeks blush the most. It can be explained by the blood going to areas that are socially substantial during people interactions. The cheeks and the forehead have more surface area than ocular cavity and the nose. Therefore, they can hold more blood and be redder at first glance. At the same time the chin blushing has the reason originated from receiving direct effect from external carotid when cardiac output changes intensively in the compliment situation. Additionally, in a case of fear, we have opposite effect – the periorbital area’s blushing rate rises, while the cheeks’ declines [1].
In the self-observing and others-observing situations it is clear that people get more embarrassed of themselves rather than others. For instance, when we do similar actions, we tend to compare ourselves with others and even find our downsides. Therefore, there is no blushing when we watch others doing such actions. However, we can experience the empathic blushing event. It means that the blushing comes from exposed empathy to people doing something as embarrassingly as we do[3].
Conclusion
In conclusion, the blushing is the body’s response to inside and outside factors. Genuine blushing occurs abruptly, unconsciously, without any single thought. It comes in first seconds when we cannot deeply analyze words or actions we do or receive from other people [3]. This feature symbolizes the signal for us that blushing should not be considered as something to be ashamed of. It is natural, and its presence is an indicator of the healthy organism.
References
1)Ioannou, S., Morris, P. H., Baker, M., Reddy, V., & Gallese, V. (2017). Seeing a blush on the visible and invisible spectrum: A functional thermal infrared imaging study. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00525
2)Mathis, V., & Kenny, P. J. (2018). Neuroscience: Brain Mechanisms of Blushing. In Current Biology (Vol. 28, Issue 14, pp. R791–R792). Cell Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.047
3)Nikolić, M., di Plinio, S., Sauter, D., Keysers, C., & Gazzola, V. (2024). The blushing brain: Neural substrates of cheek temperature increase in response to self-observation. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 291(2027). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.0958
Figures
1)https://compote.slate.com/images/3898413c-bc2b-4cee-babc-11858d30e9b7.jpeg?crop=1560%2C1040%2Cx0%2Cy0 (Date Taken: 10.06.2025, 00:35)
Denetmen: Gizem VURGUN
