From Skin to Senses: Unraveling Pain, Pleasure, and Social Touch

Quanta Magazine's The Joy of Why interviews Columbia neuroscientist Ishmail Abdus-Saboor about how pain and touch arise from skin-brain circuitry, the molecular receptors that distinguish hot, cold, touch, and pain, how researchers infer animals' internal states, the ethics of animal research, and the naked mole rat's unique sociality and pain-insensitivity, along with cutting-edge tools like optogenetics and ongoing work to translate basic findings into therapies that target perception and emotion rather than sensation alone.