The sensory coding of warm perception

Summary Humans easily discriminate tiny skin temperature changes that are perceived as warming or cooling. Dedicated thermoreceptors forming distinct thermosensory channels or “labelled lines” are thought to underlie thermal perception. We show that mice have similar perceptual thresholds for forepaw warming to humans (~1 °C change) and do not mistake warming for cooling. Mice perform warm discrimination tasks without dedicated thermoreceptors, but use information carried by unmyelinated polymodal C-fibers. Deletion of the heat-sensitive transduction channels TRPM2 and TRPV1 did not impact warming perception or afferent coding of warm. However, without the cold sensitive TRPM8 channel, afferent coding of cooling was impaired and these mice cannot perceive warming or cooling. Our data is incompatible with the existence of thermospecific labelled lines, but can be reconciled by the existence of central circuits that compare and integrate the input from at least two types of polymodal afferents, hitherto thought to exclusively signal pain.