The Nobel prize: How chilli peppers revealed how humans feel pain

Professor Francis McGlone

Think about how often we sense touch or temperature.

Perhaps it’s the warmth we feel when we hold a coffee cup, or the comfort we feel when hugging a loved one.

Some might say that the combined effects of our somatosensory system are the very essence of what it is to connect to the world around us, and to experience it.

But until the late1990s, little was known about how the body actually senses temperature and pressure.