Nerves

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Nervous Tissue - cells, types, & unique properties

Research:

The brain, the spinal cord, and nerves are all part of the nervous system which is the nervous tissue. The four primary tissues are

Epithelial: This layer provides protection, absorption, and secretion. This is made up of layers of cells that are closely spaced to cover organ surfaces, including form glands. This tissue covers the liver, the inner lining of the digestive tract, and the epidermis.

Connective: This tissue is for supporting and protecting organs, that also binds organs and tissues together. This has less cell volume and typically more matrix. This tissue covers bone to blood, tendons (muscle to bone), ligaments (bone to bone), and cartilage.

Nervous: Rapid transmission for coded information is required by this tissue for other cells. This tissue is located on the nerves, brain, and spinal cord. The nervous tissue volume is mostly glial cells.

Muscular: This tissue is the elongated muscle cells that perform contraction. This tissue protects the heart, skeletal muscles, and walls of the viscera. The exceptions are the tongue, some facial muscles, sphincter muscles (for containing and expelling), and upper esophagus (Saladin, 2012).

Each consists of neurons with supporting cells called neuroglia and glial cells that are important to transmit nerve impulses and provide nutrients for neurons. The nervous tissue's job is to perceive stimuli and generate nerve responses to different organs of the body. Each nerve cell consists of a dendrite, soma, axon, node of ranvier, axon terminal, schwann cell, myelin sheath, and nucleus (Bajaj et al., 2020). Researchers are working towards a new way to help heal and repair nerves that have been severed. By creating a stretchable conductive hydrogel (water-swollen biocompatible polymers) that would hopefully replace autologous nerve transplantation (removing the peripheral nerve from another place and transplanting it into the injured area, very ineffective and requires multiple surgeries with no guarantees or restored function) sometimes in combination with artificial nerve grafts. They have seen promising results with toads and restoration of a severed sciatic nerve (in rats) after 2 weeks post-op (O'Neill, 2020).

Critical Thinking:

When it comes to any person, being able to feel is a key sensation that is not likely to be taken for granted. After seeing how a person is affected by a neurological condition, specifically neuropathy (disruption or disease, of one or more peripheral nerves that can cause painful or numbing effects in the affected area), and getting a better understanding of what it means has given me a new perspective on what it means to have any damage to the nervous tissue (Cleveland Clinic, 2019). At home, after being in the pool for multiple hours, and everyone was getting out we noticed that one person only had pruned skin in patches around his arms because of the nerve damage, he has suffered. It was interesting to see the differences in his skin and gave us all a better understanding of how the skin does not respond the same way because of the nerve pathways being destroyed because of his neuropathy. This strange non-reaction from water is not the only thing affected with this type of nerve damage however and can cause serious shooting, burning, and tingling pain, and possibly no feeling at all.

References

Bajaj, P., Khade, K., & Pereira, H. (2020, September 14). Nervous Tissue - Characteristics, Structure, Function. https://byjus.com/biology/nervous-tissue/.

Cleveland Clinic. (2019). Neuropathy (Peripheral Neuropathy). Cleveland Clinic. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/14737-neuropathy.

O'Neill, M. (2020, October 8). Stretchable Conductive Hydrogel Developed That Could Help Repair Damaged Nerves. SciTechDaily. https://scitechdaily.com/stretchable-conductive-hydrogel-developed-that-could-help-repair-damaged-nerves/.

Saladin, K. S. (2012). Anatomy & Physiology: The Unity of Form and Function (9th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.