Two scientists have won the Brain Prize for discoveries showing how the nervous system detects and processes touch and pain.
David Ginty and Patrik Ernfors will share the Brain Prize 2026 for work that, according to the prize committee, has changed scientific understanding of how nerve cells in the skin turn painful, thermal and mechanical stimulation into neural signals.
Their research has also traced how those signals pass through the spinal cord to the brain, where perception of, and emotional and behavioural reactions to, the physical world are created.
Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg, chair of the Brain Prize selection committee, said: “Somatosensation defines the integrity of the body and the boundary between the body and the world and is thus crucial for our sense of physical self and our interactions with the world around us.
“The ability to detect and interpret touch, pain, itch, and temperature depends on an extraordinary diversity of peripheral sensory neurons, supporting cells, and precisely organised spinal cord and brainstem circuits.
“By discovering and categorising distinct sensory neuron types, linking them to specific end organs and pathways, and providing novel widely used genetic and molecular tools, their work has created a blueprint for understanding normal touch and for pinpointing where things go wrong in disorders such as chronic pain, and hyper- and hyposensitivity that may be associated with diseases of the nervous system.”
Ginty, of Harvard Medical School in the US, and Ernfors, of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, identified how different types of nerve cells in the skin respond to specific stimuli such as stroking, vibration, indentation, heat and noxious chemicals, meaning substances that can cause harm or pain.
The somatosensory system, which gives us our sense of touch, temperature and pain, is essential for understanding our own body and its physical interactions with the world.
Pain, while unpleasant, acts as a warning system that helps protect us from harm.
Disruptions to these processes can lead to severe conditions including chronic pain, which affects millions worldwide, and hypersensitivity to touch, which is seen in many developmental disorders.
The pair’s work is said to have provided the foundation for a new generation of targeted treatments for pain and somatosensory dysfunction based on specific cell types and neural pathways.
Lene Skole, chief executive of the Lundbeck Foundation, said: “Our ability to feel touch and pain is perhaps the most underappreciated of our senses.
“It gives us our sense of self and of our interactions with the world. Without it we would feel disembodied.
“This is hard to imagine and to really appreciate how profound it is, we need only look at what happens when the sense of touch and pain goes wrong.
“The fundamental new insights into the neuroscience of touch and pain provided by Patrik Ernfors and David Ginty are truly remarkable and carry hope for patients living with disorders such as chronic pain.
“It is a true pleasure to award these outstanding scientists with The Brain Prize 2026.”
