There is growing evidence for the existence of cross-talk between somatosensory labeled lines during the processing of noxious information, lending support to the notion that the nociceptive system operates under combinatorial encoding rules. In this Review, Prescott, Ma and De Koninck present an update on a controversy that is probably as old as the field of somatosensation itself and propose that the next step forward in our understanding of pain will necessarily involve the meticulous dissection of spinal dorsal horn microcircuitry.
- Steven A Prescott
- Qiufu Ma
- Yves De Koninck
