Can I convert or copy a paintbrush path to a pen path?

Hi there,

I would like to convert some paintbrush strokes to simple pen paths (with no diameter or width).  Here's why:

I have a drawing done in Illustrator CS6 which was drawn entirely using the paintbrush tool.  The brush has no fill but is a 3pt round brush.  I would like to copy the paths into After Effects to use the "stroke" effect to have it redrawn.  I usually do this by copying the paths from Illustrator and pasting directly into After Effects.  The stroke effect in AE works by drawing a stroke on the path.  This would work as usual, except the "path" that I get from the paintbrush stroke is actually outlines of the paintbrush.  For example, instead of a thick line I get a long rectangle.

Is there a way to convert this to strokes or paths instead of outlines of the paintbrush strokes?

Thanks for any ideas.

-Stephen