Tuesday, 4 March 2008

neuroscience - What is the function of nodes of Ranvier in axons?

In a neuroscience class I'm taking, it was explained that myelin covers axons in sections, the uncovered sections are called nodes of Ranvier, and signals propagate much faster in the covered sections.



But if it is faster for signals to propagate along myelinated regions of the axon, why doesn't the entire axon get covered by myelin? Wouldn't that make it faster?

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