Thread: How do NoR help?

I'm told by covering nerves in the mylin sheath and only having diffusion occur at Nodes of Ranvier it increases the transmission speed

how? I don't understand how speed is increased by having less diffusion overall

It mostly has to do with the thickness of the fiber. The thicker the fiber, the faster the signal velocity, and myelin sheathing adds thickness pretty substantially. Also, IIRC, the sheathing allows the signal to "jump" instead of traveling through each and every axom, which essentially decreases the distance required to be traveled.


One of my favorite sites for this type of information, Neuroscience for Kids, has a link discussing exactly this.

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/cv.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/salt.html