In a ground-breaking study, scientists at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN) and University Hospital Magdeburg demonstrated that the spinal cord is far more than just a transmission pathway that transmits sensory stimuli from the body. Instead, sensory stimuli are processed in the spinal cord before reaching the brain. These findings have been published in the renowned journal Science Advances and may lead to new approaches to the long-term treatment of neurological diseases.