A series of N-4-methansulfonamidobenzyl-N′-2-substituted-4-tert-butylbenzyl thioureas were prepared for the study of their agonistic/antagonistic activities to the vanilloid receptor in rat DRG neurons. Their structure–activity relationship reveals that there is a space for another hydrophobic binding interaction around 2-position in 4-tert-butylbenzyl region. Among the prepared derivatives, 6n show the highest antagonistic activity against the ...