Abstract

Sensory neurons innervating the skin encode the familiar sensations of temperature, touch and pain. An explosion of progress has revealed unanticipated cellular and molecular complexity in these senses. It is now clear that perception of a single stimulus, such as heat, requires several transduction mechanisms. Conversely, a given protein may contribute to multiple senses, such as heat and touch. Recent studies have also led to the surprising insight that skin cells might transduce temperature and touch. To break the code underlying somatosensation, we must therefore understand how the skin's sensory functions are divided among signalling molecules and cell types.

1. Departments of Neuroscience, Molecular Physiology & Biophysics and Molecular & Human Genetics, Baylor College of Medicine, One Baylor Plaza, Houston, Texas 77030, USA.
2. Departments of Biological Chemistry and Neuroscience, and the Center for Sensory Biology, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, 725 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21205, USA.

Correspondence to: E.A.L. and M.J.C. (Email: lumpkin@bcm.edu; Email: caterina@jhmi.edu). Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions.

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