Acute neuropathic pain is a common complication following trauma or injury of a peripheral nerve but the underlying mechanism is obscure. In this issue, Zhu et al. describe how they established a rat model of acute nerve injury and applied in vivo electrophysiology to demonstrate that mechanical hypersensitivity and nociceptive hyperexcitability are induced immediately after transection of a muscular but not a cutaneous nerve. In the cover image, a model rat (below) expresses pain (hindpaw lifting) with the tibial nerve (including muscular afferents) transected. However, no pain is expressed by another rat (top) with the sural nerve (cutaneous only) transected. See pages 453–462. (Cover image provided by Prof. Chao Ma).