Early-life stress is associated with an increased risk of gastrointestinal disorders including IBS. In mice exposed to early-life stress caused by maternal separation, the researchers found an increased number of pain behaviours and visceral hypersensivity compared with mice that did not experience early-life stress. These changes were associated with altered histone acetylation in regions of the spine critical to visceral pain processing. Treatment of mice exposed to early-life stress with a histone deacetylase inhibitor, suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid, reversed visceral hypersensitivity and stress-induced faecal output. The authors suggest that modulation of epigenetic machinery could form the basis of new anti-IBS drugs.