Pictured is the ventral tegmental area (VTA) of a mouse. Ventrolateral periaqueductal gray (vlPAG) GABAergic terminals projecting to the VTA are stained in green, VTA dopamine neurons are stained in red, and all cell bodies are stained in blue with DAPI. Chao-Chao Zhong and colleagues discovered that vlPAG GABA neurons inhibit VTA dopamine neurons to mediate ongoing acute pain signal processing under anesthesia and subsequently delay recovery from anesthesia. See the article by Zhong et al. for more information on the mechanism they discovered. Cover image: Jun-Li Cao.