Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Hop, Walk or Run?

kangaroo-clip-art
After years of reading about MS, I found myself unable to answer a very basic question. What exactly is attacked by our nervous system in MS? As I was trying to define how MS attacks, I realized I didn’t know the answer to a very basic question. With MS, does our immune system target our nerves or “just” the myelin sheaths? I’ve used this for a basic understanding for years: http://www.ms-gateway.com/my-life-with-ms/introduction/what-is-ms-179.htm

The link says, “demyelinated axons, however, cannot conduct electrical impulses efficiently. When nerve fibres have been stripped, i.e. have been demyelinated, they may begin to “short circuit” or fail to properly transmit signals within the nervous system. Thus, when myelin sheaths are damaged, impulses are slower than they used to be. Messages then have to be passed on along the entire length of the nerve fibres which is much slower than if impulses could still jump from node to node.
Transmission is slowed or even blocked.”

I was then looking at http://www.unm.edu/~jimmy/myelin_sheath.jpg which gives a great graphical representation of the myelin sheath and a cross section of a nerve.

Given that the impulses travel more readily by jumping along the outer membrane of the myelin sheath and often fail completely without the myelin, why do we think our nerve signals ever naturally travel the length of the nerve fibers instead of traveling along the outer membrane of the myelin sheath?

Heather on Patients like me gave me the answers I was seeking. We have unmyelinated nerves which conduct signals. I finally got the an answer which fits in my head too when Heather explained the signals traveling faster when hopping from point to point. Now I picture my nerve signals like a kangaroo. I imagine timing a walking kangaroo in a race against a hopping one. I can also look at footsteps in the dirt. When we run, our steps are further apart. With these two images in my head, I can understand how a signal might travel faster jumping between the nodes in the myelin sheath.

Thread on Patients Like Me: https://www.patientslikeme.com/forum/ms/topics/125826

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kids' perspective, MS symptoms, Multiple Sclerosis, Uncategorized

These Are the Days of Miracle and Wonder

Young chemist at work
Young chemist at work

 

This week, I read about a learning pill which is supposed to allow people to regain their ability to hear different pitches.  In the same week, I see a story about an MS author whose books I have enjoyed since I was diagnosed with MS beginning stem cell treatments in an effort to reverse the course of his MS.  Since many of my symptoms these days are cognitive, I began to think about what a treatment to revert or reboot my ability to learn might actually mean for me.

As I thought more on the issue, I came to suspect a drug which allowed for greater plasticity would disappoint many.  I suspect a lot of what keeps us from learning new things is our acceptance of what we already “know.”

When we say kids are like sponges, I think of how many “why” questions I answer daily from A (age 8) and O (age 7).  They are trying to model the world in their minds to gain the ability to predict and impact what is going on around them.  As we get older, we think we know, and we stop asking.  We develop our lives around the world as we perceive it.

The ability for our minds to take in new information is only one part of the equation.  We have to be actively trying to learn.  I think about the book Crashing Through,  and in the book, the author tells how most blind people who suddenly get their sight back at an older age are depressed.  The world of sight is not as they thought, and their ability to use their sight to help them is less than they predicted.  It is only when the author goes back to using his cane as if blind that he is able to rejoin society at large.  Sight had to be relegated to additional information, not a primary source.

Would a more nimble brain be a more open brain, questioning everything, or would it be little more than a faster,bigger hard drive for our existing thought patterns?  For which would you hope?  I note with sight the latter approach was the author’s only way to prevent the common side effect of depression.  New unknowns are only rarely as we think and hope they will be.  Still, it is only through our willingness to explore the unknowns that we are able to learn.  In some ways the choice to embark upon such a treatment course would be a reversion to the younger thought patterns before any chemical entered the blood stream.

 

 

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