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Papers of the Week


Papers: 21 Mar 2020 - 27 Mar 2020


Animal Studies


2020 Mar 16


Neuron

Editor's Pick

The Sensory Coding of Warm Perception.

Authors

Paricio-Montesinos R, Schwaller F, Udhayachandran A, Rau F, Walcher J, Evangelista R, Vriens J, Voets T, Poulet JFA, Lewin GR
Neuron. 2020 Mar 16.
PMID: 32208171.

Abstract

Humans detect skin temperature changes that are perceived as warm or cool. Like humans, mice report forepaw skin warming with perceptual thresholds of less than 1°C and do not confuse warm with cool. We identify two populations of polymodal C-fibers that signal warm. Warm excites one population, whereas it suppresses the ongoing cool-driven firing of the other. In the absence of the thermosensitive TRPM2 or TRPV1 ion channels, warm perception was blunted, but not abolished. In addition, trpv1:trpa1:trpm3 triple-mutant mice that cannot sense noxious heat detected skin warming, albeit with reduced sensitivity. In contrast, loss or local pharmacological silencing of the cool-driven TRPM8 channel abolished the ability to detect warm. Our data are not reconcilable with a labeled line model for warm perception, with receptors firing only in response to warm stimuli, but instead support a conserved dual sensory model to unambiguously detect skin warming in vertebrates.