Skin: Branching Out
by Bonnie Taylor-Blake (Zylka Lab)
Like branches coming off a tree trunk, bundles of nerve fibers spread up and outwards to the skin surface. The endings of these nerve fibers sense cues from the environment, such as temperature and touch, and respond to injury-producing stimuli that lead to the sense of pain. A hair follicle (left) is encircled by nerve endings that detect movements of the hair itself. This image was acquired through the use of a fluorescent antibody that labels a specific protein expressed in such nerve fibers; this photograph represents a negative of that captured via confocal microscopy.