Pain

Recent articles

Peggy Mason at her desk.

Up and out with Peggy Mason

Mason helped define the rodent prosocial behavior field, but now she’s changing course.

By Sydney Wyatt
15 August 2025 | 13 min read
Research image of the spinal meninges in mice.

Immune cells block pain in female mice only

Regulatory T cells in the spinal meninges release endogenous opioids in a sex-specific manner, new work shows.

By Angie Voyles Askham
22 May 2025 | 6 min listen
Tic-tac-toe board with pills representing x’s and o’s.

Basic pain research ‘is not working’: Q&A with Steven Prescott and Stéphanie Ratté

Prescott and Ratté critique the clinical relevance of preclinical studies in the field and highlight areas for improvement.

By Sydney Wyatt
18 April 2025 | 7 min read
Research image of neurons in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex (right, in green) sending signals to cells in the pontine nucleus (left, in yellow) to quell pain.

Cerebellar circuit may convert expected pain relief into real thing

The newly identified circuit taps into the brain’s opioid system to provide a top-down form of pain relief.

By Angie Voyles Askham
24 July 2024 | 6 min read

Robots boost data consistency in rodent studies reliant on mechanical, optogenetic stimulation

Two new devices take experimenter variation out of the equation, the lead investigators say.

By Calli McMurray
15 May 2024 | 0 min watch

The question of regeneration—an excerpt from ‘Periphery: How Your Nervous System Predicts and Protects Against Disease’

In his recent book, Moses Chao makes the case that the peripheral nervous system can warn of future illnesses.

By Moses V. Chao
26 April 2024 | 7 min read
Research image of presynapses on sensory neurons in fruit flies.

UBE3A’s link to synaptic pruning bolstered by fly study

Increasing or reducing the levels of the UBE3A gene, which is associated with autism and autism-related syndromes, results in altered patterns of synaptic pruning — a process that snips away brain cell connections.

By Giorgia Guglielmi
28 September 2023 | 5 min read
A hand reaches from above to add a pill to a stack that is resting against the x-axis of a graph.

Going on Trial: Epidiolex for autism; arbaclofen tests; pain monitoring

This month’s issue of Going on Trial takes a sneak peek at some early null results from a small trial of a cannabidiol-based drug for autism, among other recent drug developments.

By Peter Hess
30 May 2023 | 7 min read
Research video of a zebrafish larva (zoomed in on the gut) being given glucose.

On the periphery: Thinking ‘outside the brain’ offers new ideas about autism

Neuronal alterations outside the brain may help to explain a host of the condition’s characteristic traits, including sensory changes, gut problems and motor differences.

By Sarah DeWeerdt
13 April 2023 | 20 min read
Woman is holding her fingers to her forehead in pain.

Pain keeps autistic women and girls home from work, school

More autistic women and girls report daily pain than do men and boys with the condition.

By Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky
4 May 2021 | 3 min read

Explore more from The Transmitter

Illustration of a hand drawing lines between different points on the outline of a brain.

Beyond Newtonian causation in neuroscience: Embracing complex causality

The traditional mechanistic framework must give way to a richer understanding of how brains actually generate behavior over time.

By Luiz Pessoa
22 September 2025 | 6 min read
Photograph of a real bird looking at a model bird.

Robots marry natural neuroscience, experimental control to probe animal interactions

Faux fish and birds are helping researchers decipher some of the rules that govern schooling and squawking, among other social behaviors.

By Calli McMurray
19 September 2025 | 7 min read
Research image visualizing genetic variation.

Long-read sequencing unearths overlooked autism-linked variants

Strips that are thousands of base pairs in length offer better resolution of structural variants and tandem repeats, according to two independent preprints.

By Natalia Mesa
18 September 2025 | 6 min read

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