The way we perceive and respond to physical pain is more than just a physical sensation – it also carries an emotional weight. This emotional discomfort can motivate us to take action and helps us learn to associate negative feelings with situations so we can avoid them in the future. However, when our ability to tolerate pain becomes too sensitive or lasts too long, it can result in chronic and affective pain disorders such as fibromyalgia, migraines, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Researchers at the Salk Institute have now identified a brain circuit that gives physical pain its emotional tone. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study reveals a group of neurons in the central brain area called the thalamus that appears to mediate the emotional or affective side of pain in mice.

The prevailing view for decades was that the brain processes sensory and emotional aspects of pain through separate pathways. However, this new pathway challenges the textbook understanding of how pain is processed in the brain and body. The physical sensation of pain allows you to immediately detect it, assess its intensity, and identify its source, while the affective part of pain makes it unpleasant.

This distinction is crucial because most people start to perceive pain at the same stimulus intensities. However, our ability to tolerate pain varies greatly, with some individuals being more sensitive than others. The affective processing determines how much we suffer or feel threatened by pain. If this becomes too sensitive or lasts too long, it can result in a pain disorder.

The researchers used advanced techniques to manipulate the activity of specific brain cells and discovered a new spinothalamic pathway in mice. In this circuit, pain signals are sent from the spinal cord into a different part of the thalamus, which has connections to the amygdala, the brain’s emotional processing center. This particular group of neurons can be identified by their expression of CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide).

When these CGRP neurons were “turned off,” the mice still reacted to mild pain stimuli but didn’t seem to associate lasting negative feelings with these situations. However, when these same neurons were “turned on,” the mice showed clear signs of distress and learned to avoid that area, even when no pain stimuli had been used.

“Pain processing is not just about nerves detecting pain; it’s about the brain deciding how much that pain matters,” says first author Sukjae Kang. Understanding the biology behind these two distinct processes will help us find treatments for the kinds of pain that don’t respond to traditional drugs.

Many chronic pain conditions, such as fibromyalgia and migraine, involve long, intense, unpleasant experiences of pain often without a clear physical source or injury. Some patients also report extreme sensitivity to ordinary stimuli like light, sound, or touch which others would not perceive as painful.

Han says overactivation of the CGRP spinothalamic pathway may contribute to these conditions by making the brain misinterpret or overreact to sensory inputs. In fact, transcriptomic analysis of the CGRP neurons showed that they express many of the genes associated with migraine and other pain disorders.

Several CGRP blockers are already being used to treat migraines. This study may help explain why these medications work and could inspire new nonaddictive treatments for affective pain disorders. Han also sees potential relevance for psychiatric conditions that involve heightened threat perception, such as PTSD. Quieting this pathway with CGRP blockers could offer a new approach to easing fear, avoidance, and hypervigilance in trauma-related disorders.

Importantly, the relationship between the CGRP pathway and the psychological pain associated with social experiences like grief, loneliness, and heartbreak remains unclear and requires further study.

“Our discovery of the CGRP affective pain pathway gives us a molecular and circuit-level explanation for the difference between detecting physical pain and suffering from it,” says Han. “We’re excited to continue exploring this pathway and enabling future therapies that can reduce this suffering.”

The article highlights the crucial aspect of climate change that has often been overlooked – its impact on the nutritional quality of food crops. Rising CO2 levels and hotter temperatures can lead to a reduction in key minerals like calcium and certain antioxidant compounds, making the crops less healthy. This is not just a problem for farmers but also for consumers, as it can lead to diets that are higher in calories but poorer in nutritional value.

The research, led by Jiata Ugwah Ekele, a PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University, UK, used environment-controlled growth chambers to simulate the UK’s predicted future climate scenarios. The crops were grown under different conditions, and their nutritional quality was analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and X-Ray Fluorescence profiling.

The preliminary results suggest that elevated levels of atmospheric CO2 can help crops grow faster and bigger but certainly not healthier. The interaction between CO2 and heat stress had complex effects – the crops did not grow as big or fast, and the decline in nutritional quality intensified.

This research has serious implications for human health and wellbeing. The altered balance of nutrients in crops could contribute to diets that are higher in calories but poorer in nutritional value, leading to greater risks of obesity and type 2 diabetes, particularly in populations already struggling with non-communicable diseases.

Crops with poor nutritional content can also lead to deficiencies in vital proteins and vitamins that compromise the human immune system and exacerbate existing health conditions – particularly in low or middle-income countries.

The research highlights the importance of studying multiple stressors together and emphasizes that we cannot generalize across crops. Different species react differently to climate change stressors, making it essential to study each crop individually.

This research is not just about food production but also about human development and climate adaptation. It’s essential to think holistically about the kind of food system we’re building – one that not only produces enough food but also promotes health, equity, and resilience.

The findings of this research are being presented at the Society for Experimental Biology Annual Conference in Antwerp, Belgium on July 8th, 2025. The researchers are open to collaborating further on this project with the wider research community, including those from agriculture, nutrition, and climate policy.

The Crucial Connection Between Sleep and Heart Health: What Women Over 45 Need to Know

For women over 45, the menopause transition can be a critical period for cardiovascular health. According to recent research published in Menopause, only about 1 in 5 women achieve optimal scores using the American Heart Association’s health-assessment tool, known as Life’s Essential 8 (LE8). This study highlights the significance of four key components driving future cardiovascular risks: blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality, and nicotine use.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Baylor University analyzed data from approximately 3,000 women who participated in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN). The team compared the women’s LE8 scores at baseline to their evolving health trajectories over time. The results showed that four LE8 components – blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality, and nicotine use – were the most important factors influencing future cardiovascular risks.

Notably, sleep emerged as a crucial predictor for long-term effects of cardiovascular disease events and all-cause mortality. Meeting the bar for healthy sleep, defined in Life’s Essential 8 as seven to nine hours on average for most adults, may contribute to women’s heart health and longevity. However, only 21% of midlife women studied had an ideal LE8 score.

“With heart disease being the leading cause of death in women, these findings point to the need for lifestyle and medical interventions to improve heart health during and after menopause among midlife women,” said senior author Samar R. El Khoudary, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor of epidemiology at Pitt’s School of Public Health.

This study underscores the importance of prioritizing sleep as a critical component in maintaining long-term cardiovascular health for women over 45. By making informed lifestyle choices and seeking medical attention when needed, women can take control of their heart health during this critical period.