| Combining two techniquessingle cell RNA-sequencing andin vivofunctional imaginghas led to new insights into the underlying basis for the complex sense of touch. This research from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research was recently published inNeuron. Neurons targeting the skin provide humans and other animals with important information about their environment and generate rich sensory experiences. Understanding how stimuli such as temperature and various kinds of touch are discriminated and encoded remains a fundamental challenge. In this study, researchers developed an innovative strategy for linking two powerful but disconnected approaches for classifying neurons: single cell RNA-sequencing, which defines neurons according to the expression of hundreds of genes, andin vivofunctional imaging, which characterizes groups of neurons according to their activity. They then used this combined approach to study the responses to a variety of stimuli, such as gentle brush, pinch, hair-pull, air-puff, and vibration. The results provide new rules to help explain the discriminatory power of touch: a clear logic emerges whereby each type of stimulus is represented by its own combinatorial ensemble of transcriptomically-defined classes. | 
