The sensory coding of warm perception
Autor/innen
- R. Paricio-Montesinos
- F. Schwaller
- A. Udhayachandran
- F. Rau
- J. Walcher
- R. Evangelista
- J. Vriens
- T. Voets
- J.F.A. Poulet
- G.R. Lewin
Journal
- Neuron
Quellenangabe
- Neuron 106 (5): 830-841
Zusammenfassung
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.