How do you feel? A warm and touching 2021 Nobel tribute

Perceptions of touch, temperature, and pain inform us about our bodies' condition and the world around us, and are critical determinants of our function, self-protection, comfort, and social interactions.Charles Sherrington, 1932 Nobel laureate, proposed that our perception of physically diverse stimuli over different intensities as distinct sensations implied the existence of correspondingly distinct neuronal mechanisms to detect these stimuli (1).Studies in the mid-1900s confirmed the existence of distinct peripheral somatosensory neuron subpopulations differentially tuned to touch, temperature, and irritant chemicals that produce a range of innocuous and noxious perceptions.However, the molecular mechanisms by which such physically distinct stimuli are detected and quantified remained enigmatic for several more decades.The 2021