The nature of the nerve.

So yes I'm back, had an unfortunate passing in the family which kept me away.

So let's get started with the nerve, what does it do and how does it work? Well to make it easy, take the example of somebody touching you, that initiates a signal ( known as an action potential) from the sensory neurons, going to the brain via the spine then a response ( the realisation that someone touched me!).

In our body there are nerves which are myelinated ( the fatty layering around the nerves) and non- myelinated ( obviously, no myelin). This speeds up the signal in large quantities, like an formula one car to a baby crawling. A human body would naturally have these where needed.

When the myelin is damaged, it becomes the root of all the symptoms experienced with such neurological disorders like MS. Thinking of it to be like a electric cable, the rubber coating being the myelin and the copper beneath being the nerve fiber(s) where the signals are transferred. When the signals can't travel properly a 'short charge' would occur and the signals may jump to the wrong nerves just like a charge would transfer current to anything nearby that conducts electricity, and If the damage is to an extent the nerve cell is completely dead then as you'd expect nothing is registered or picked up so it is pretty much left like a vegetable.

Now as MS affects the brain and spinal cord, the nerves damaged are the ones based there which would be responsible for transferring messages to the 'peripheral' nerves leading to normal bodily responses.

I like to see a body with MS a bit like a game of minecraft by someone who wouldn't know how to play it, so metaphorically speaking, bombs sites all over the nervous system which are expected to worsen over time.

How this is all thought to happen we will wait till this science lesson is digested!