Re: Brain Speed

From: Anders Sandberg (nv91-asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Aug 13 1997 - 12:59:41 MDT


On Wed, 13 Aug 1997, John K Clark wrote:

> It's true that sometimes signals in neurons, particularly in dendrites,
> travel passively like in a simple wire, however I don't see how that could
> make much of a difference in the overall speed of the brain.

Actually, myelinization does increase the speed of transmission in
the brain (otherwise it would have made more evolutionary sense to
have no myelin in the white matter and shrink the brain a lot), but
the real wins are in the peripheral nervous system.

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