Nonpeptidergic circuits feel your pain

Abstract

Pain consists of both a sensory component and an affective component. In this issue of Neuron, Braz and colleagues genetically targeted the transneuronal tract tracer wheat germ agglutinin (WGA) to nonpeptidergic nociceptive neurons. They found that these neurons give rise to a specialized multisynaptic circuit that links pain signals in the periphery to limbic/affective regions of the brain.