Multiple populations of sensory afferents innervate the distal colon with differing sensitivities to mechanical stimuli (e.g., stretch, stroke, and von Frey hair probing of their receptive fields) (Brierley et al., 2004) and while we did not seek to characterize these groups more specifically, we did observe suppressive effects of galanin across the full range of distension pressures from physiological through to noxious (i.e., 0–80 mmHg, Figure 1c). This evidence concerns the gene GAL and Stroke.