the.com/myelin
the fatty bubble wrap that lets your nerves text at highway speeds
means Myelin is the fatty insulating sheath wrapped around nerve fibers that speeds up the transmission of electrical signals.
from Coined in the mid-19th century by German pathologist Rudolf Virchow, from Greek 'myelos' meaning 'marrow' — the same root that gives us the 'myel-' in things like myeloid. The Greeks used 'myelos' for the soft inner stuff of bones and the spinal cord alike, so when scientists found this soft, marrow-like fatty substance hugging nerves, the old word for 'marrow' got drafted into service.
- speed boost
- signals leap 100x faster than bare nerves
- made of fat
- roughly 80 percent lipid, 20 percent protein
- saltatory leap
- impulses jump between gaps called nodes of Ranvier
- MS target
- its destruction defines multiple sclerosis
- slow builder
- keeps wrapping your brain into your twenties
for instance
ms plaques — demyelinating lesions in multiple sclerosis patients, affecting optic nerve and spinal cord