6. In the brain and the spinal cord, our nerve fibers are wrapped in an insulating outer layer - a protective sheath called myelin - required to speed up transmission of electrical signals. Thanks to these fatty sheaths, impulses can jump from one periodic break in the myelin sheaths, called nodes, to the next node, thus enabling messages to be passed on at high speeds. There is still much research that needs to be done on how this effects our children and autism. However, we do know that when the myelin is damaged, the axons of the nerves are left naked. Naked axons cannot conduct electrical impulses efficiently. When nerve fibers have been stripped, they may begin to “short circuit” or fail to properly transmit signals within the nervous system. Thus, when myelin sheaths are damaged, impulses are slower than they should be. Messages then have to be passed on along the entire length of the nerve fibers which is much slower than if impulses could still jump from node to node. Transmission is slowed or even blocked. Research is finding that boys naturally have thinner myelin sheaths, which could point to one reason why boys would be more susceptible to damage, and thus, having a higher autism and adhd rate among boys. When we first took my son in to be evaluated, we were told that his left and right brains didn’t communicate as quickly as they should, so it took him longer to retrieve information. Later, we also learned that high levels of Omega 3’s could help breech the gap to help everything go quicker. We were also told then that this was a more common problem among boys, though I dont believe that anyone had given us the information about the myelin sheath at that time. Tiffany Rowan explains it this way on her website: “Nerves are incased in a protective sheath called Myelin. Myelin can be damaged by metals and toxins. Imagine toxins being worms that eat holes in leaves. When there is a hole in the Myelin sheath, it leaves the nerve exposed. Each hole in the nerve causes the nerve to send wrong messages to body parts. This means that an Autistic child can have symptoms regarding sensory issues with their eyes, ears and taste buds. They may have reactions to food that appear to be food allergies. They may have chronic diarrhea or constipation. We’ll talk more about things that may help repair the Myelin Sheath in a few minutes.
Posted on: Tue, 06 May 2014 20:17:50 +0000
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