Neuroscience

Visualizing multiple sclerosis with a new MRI procedure

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a neurological disease that usually leads to permanent disabilities. It affects about 2.9 million people worldwide, and about 15,000 in Switzerland alone. One key feature of the disease is that ...

Neuroscience

Possible biomarker of MS-like autoimmune disease discovered

It has been known for several years that the diagnosis "multiple sclerosis" conceals a whole range of different illnesses, each requiring customized treatment. Researchers at the University of Basel and the University Hospital ...

Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Multiple sclerosis: Myelin may be detrimental to nerve fibers

Multiple sclerosis (MS) affects millions of people worldwide, and there is currently no cure for this disease of the central nervous system. Damage to the nerve fibers, also called axons, is responsible for the severity of ...

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Myelin

Myelin is a dielectric (electrically insulating) material that forms a layer, the myelin sheath, usually around only the axon of a neuron. It is essential for the proper functioning of the nervous system. Myelin is an outgrowth of a type of glial cell. The production of the myelin sheath is called myelination. In humans, the production of myelin begins in the fourteenth week of fetal development, although little myelin exists in the brain at the time of birth. During infancy, myelination occurs quickly and continues through the adolescent stages of life.

Schwann cells supply the myelin for peripheral neurons, whereas oligodendrocytes, specifically of the interfascicular type, myelinate the axons of the central nervous system. Myelin is considered a defining characteristic of the (gnathostome) vertebrates, but myelin-like sheaths have also arisen by parallel evolution in some invertebrates, although they are quite different from vertebrate myelin at the molecular level. Myelin was discovered in 1854 by Rudolf Virchow.

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