Harvard Neuroscientist David D. Ginty, PhD, will receive the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize for his pivotal discoveries on the sensation of touch and how our body communicates with the brain.
The UNC School of Medicine has awarded the esteemed 23rd Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize to David D. Ginty, PhD, the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Professor of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, for “pioneering research on the development and function of the neural circuits underlying touch.”
Ginty will visit Chapel Hill on March 6, 2025, to receive the prize – a $20,000 award – and give a lecture on his work at the UNC School of Medicine.
“Dr. Ginty’s research illuminated the intricate pathways of touch, revealing how our skin’s sensations are felt and communicated to the brain,” said Mark Zylka, PhD, Director of the UNC Neuroscience Center and chair of the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize committee. “This work deepens our understanding of how we interact with the world through our sense of touch.”
Ginty, who is also chair of the Harvard Medical School Department of Neurobiology, has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator since 2000 and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science in 2015. Just two years later, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.
The Basics of Low-threshold Mechanoreceptors
His lab at Harvard uses a combination of genetics, electrophysiology, microscopy, and behavioral measures to better understand the neurons responsible for handling our sense of touch. These neurons, called low-threshold mechanoreceptors (LTMRs), come in many different classes and react to very subtle tactile stimuli — such as indentation, vibration, physical bending of hair, and stretching of the skin.
LTMRs originate from dorsal root ganglia, clusters of neuronal cell bodies adjacent to the spinal cord and have long processes that end in the skin. When a tactile stimulus is picked up, these neurons convert the stimulus into an electrical signal that is relayed to the spinal cord and up to specialized areas of the brain. These signals help us perceive the physical world around us and oftentimes trigger a behavioral response, such as movement.
Together, LTMRs, the spinal cord, and the brain neurons that govern tactile perception and coordinate our responses to tactile stimuli form the somatosensory system, represent the collection of circuits that process touch. However, the exact mechanisms used by neurons in this system to transmit, process, and receive touch signals were not well understood.
Notable Findings in the Ginty Lab
The Ginty lab has made a number of notable findings over the past decade. His most paradigm-shifting discoveries revealed how LTMRs and touch circuits in the spinal cord are constructed during development, and how these sensory neurons are connected to the spinal cord and brainstem. His lab has also provided new insights into how dysfunction of touch circuitry can explain touch hypersensitivity in individuals with autism spectrum disorders and those with chronic pain conditions.
In 2011, the Ginty lab mapped out how touch receptors are organized within hairy skin, which covers about 90% of our body’s surface. Their findings, which were published in Cell, revealed that different types of LMTR endings wrap around individual hair follicles, forming intermingled endings with one another. They then traced these receptors to where they “terminate” in the spinal cord, finding that they form column-like structures in a region of the spinal cord called the dorsal horn.
Recently, Ginty’s lab published a pair of papers in 2022, which focused on how the central nervous system processes tactile signals to build internal representations of touch. The first paper, published in Cell, revealed that the spinal cord and the brainstem are both actively involved in processing “light touch” signals from different classes of LTMRs. Overall, their findings revealed the critical role the spinal cord plays in processing touch information.
The other paper, published in Nature, demonstrated that two subdivisions of the touch circuitry in the spinal cord, LTMRs and spinal cord dorsal horn neurons (PSDCs), relay different features of touch stimuli to the brain. The researchers found that LTMR neurons relay vibration signals to the spinal cord and that PSDC neurons send signals about ongoing pressure or contact with the skin.
Remarkably, the researchers discovered that these two subdivisions converge in the dorsal column nuclei of the brainstem to create a more accurate representation of tactile stimuli, and that these signals then travel beyond the brainstem, to higher levels of the touch circuit hierarchy that exist in the brain’s cortex and midbrain.
A “Nice Touch” to Dr. Perl’s Original Research
In other recent discoveries, Ginty’s lab revealed more information about mechanosensory neurons in the gastrointestinal system, the genitalia, bones, and other regions of the body.
One recent study published in Science reported that one type of LTMR, called C-fiber LTMRs, are part of a neural pathway that underlies “wet dog shakes,” a widespread behavior in hairy animals that is used to remove water and irritants from hairy skin. These findings provided more insights into how tactile irritants are detected and removed from the bodies of furry animals.
Ginty’s research has come full circle, as his most recent paper cites work by Edward Perl, MD, the namesake of his most recent research award.
“In David Ginty’s latest cover article published in Science, where he found that these same afferents evoke wet dog shakes when activated, he cited Dr. Perl’s seminal 1971 paper on C-fiber low threshold mechanoreceptors,” said Ginty. “I felt like that was a very nice touch and I am sure Dr. Perl would be excited about the latest findings.”
“Ed Perl is giant in my field, a trailblazer,” said Ginty. “I am truly honored that my lab’s work is being recognized with an award bearing his name.”
About the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize
The Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize, established in 2000, is named after former UNC professor Edward Perl, MD, who discovered that a specific type of sensory neuron responded to painful stimuli and was the first president of the Society for Neuroscience. Dr. Perl passed away in 2014. The prize recognizes researchers for outstanding discoveries and seminal insights in the broad field of neuroscience, while celebrating the strength of the neuroscience research program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Six of its previous winners have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine or The Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Five awardees subsequently won the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Three other Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize recipients have gone on to win the Kavli Prize.
Along with chair Mark Zylka, PhD, the Perl-UNC Neuroscience Prize selection committee consists of: Rui M. Costa, DVM, PhD, professor of neuroscience at Columbia University; Adrienne Fairhall, PhD, University Professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics and director of the Computational Neuroscience Program at the University of Washington; Adam Hantman, PhD, associate professor and the Edward R. Perl Investigator at the UNC Department of Cell Biology and Physiology; Ben Philpot, PhD, the Kenan Distinguished Professor of Cell Biology and Physiology at the UNC School of Medicine and associate director of the UNC Neuroscience Center; and Huda Y. Zoghbi, PhD, Distinguished Service Professor, Baylor College of Medicine and Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Director, Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Media contact: Kendall Daniels Rovinsky, Communications Specialist, UNC Health | UNC School of Medicine