ArticleScience advances2019
An ultrafast system for signaling mechanical pain in human skin.
Article in Science advances, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06052631 (Microneurographic Assessment of Peripheral Nerves in Healthy Volunteers and Individuals With Sensory Dysfunction Caused by Inherited Mutations in the PIEZO2 Gene), which is not on this map. Cited by 75 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Microneurographic Assessment of Peripheral Nerves in Healthy Volunteers and Individuals With Sensory Dysfunction Caused by Inherited Mutations in the PIEZO2 Gene
Who cites it
75 citing papers in PubMed, 139 citations in OpenAlex.
- Wireless IoT-enabled microneedle electroceutical for personalized and connected pain management.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Central role for fast nociceptors in mechanical nocifensive behavior and sensitization.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Article
- BDNF-TrκB-PLCγ signaling drives BPA-induced mechanical allodynia through activating mechanosensitive Piezo2 channels.Cell & bioscience · 2026Article
- Early-life maternal care is required for the typical development of calming responses to back stroking.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Coding of mechanical pain by myelinated and unmyelinated nociceptors in human hairy skin.Pain reports · 2026Article
- Rapid peripheral reprogramming of myelinated afferents drives human hyperalgesia.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Single-nuclei RNA sequencing reveals distinct transcriptomic signatures of rat dorsal root ganglia in a chronic discogenic low back pain model.The journal of pain · 2026Article
- Emergent technologies in clinical neurophysiology to study the neuromuscular system: IFCN handbook chapter.Clinical neurophysiology practice · 2026Review
- Fast-conducting mechanonociceptors uniquely engage reflexive and affective pain circuitry to drive protective responses.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- A Reference Atlas of the Human Dorsal Root Ganglion.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Aβ low threshold mechanoreceptors contribute to sensory abnormalities in fibromyalgia.Brain : a journal of neurology · 2025Article
- 3D-Printed Microneedles with Controlled Structures for Drug Delivery Study in an Ex Vivo Model.Micromachines · 2025Article
- From nociception in aneural animals to human suffering: toward a comparative biology of pain.The Journal of experimental biology · 2025Review
- Review
- Robust coupling between the C-tactile afferent and the hair follicle in humans.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- Pain integration of multimodal noxious stimulation based on the perceptual instruction.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The extraordinary enigma of ordinary tickle behavior: Why gargalesis still puzzles neuroscience.Science advances · 2025Review
- Article
- Comparing neural responses to cutaneous heat and pressure pain in healthy participants.Scientific reports · 2025Article
15 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
19 authors at 9 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The canonical view is that touch is signaled by fast-conducting, thickly myelinated afferents, whereas pain is signaled by slow-conducting, thinly myelinated ("fast" pain) or unmyelinated ("slow" pain) afferents. While other mammals have thickly myelinated afferents signaling pain (ultrafast nociceptors), these have not been demonstrated in humans. Here, we performed single-unit axonal recordings (microneurography) from cutaneous mechanoreceptive afferents in healthy participants. We identified A-fiber high-threshold mechanoreceptors (A-HTMRs) that were insensitive to gentle touch, encoded noxious skin indentations, and displayed conduction velocities similar to A-fiber low-threshold mechanoreceptors. Intraneural electrical stimulation of single ultrafast A-HTMRs evoked painful percepts. Testing in patients with selective deafferentation revealed impaired pain judgments to graded mechanical stimuli only when thickly myelinated fibers were absent. This function was preserved in patients with a loss-of-function mutation in mechanotransduction channel PIEZO2. These findings demonstrate that human mechanical pain does not require PIEZO2 and can be signaled by fast-conducting, thickly myelinated afferents.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.