Each thought or action sends a million electrical signals pulsing through your body. At the heart of the process of generating these electrical impulses is the ion channel.

Our brains are buzzing with electrical activity created by sodium and potassium ions moving in and out of neurons through specialized pores. To prevent the constant chatter from descending into chaos the activity of these ion channels has to be tightly regulated.

The ion channel activated by menthol also detects a wide range of cold temperatures and relays the information to the brain, according to a study in Nature by Yale School of Medicine, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and the University of Wisconsin.