What is the function of the node of Ranvier?

Node of Ranvier, periodic gap in the insulating sheath (myelin) on the axon of certain neurons that serves to facilitate the rapid conduction of nerve impulses.

What are nodes of Ranvier and what is its function?

These are the gaps formed between the myelin sheath where the axons are left uncovered. Because the myelin sheath is largely composed of an insulating fatty substance, the nodes of Ranvier allow the generation of a fast electrical impulse along the axon. This rapid rate of conduction is called saltatory conduction.

What is the function of axon?

Axon, also called nerve fibre, portion of a nerve cell (neuron) that carries nerve impulses away from the cell body. A neuron typically has one axon that connects it with other neurons or with muscle or gland cells.

Node of Ranvier, periodic gap in the insulating sheath ( myelin) on the axon of certain neurons that serves to facilitate the rapid conduction of nerve impulses.

How does saltatory conduction occur in a Ranvier node?

This arrangement gives rise to a high-resistance, low-capacitance electrical insulator. However, nodes of Ranvier interrupt the insulation at intervals, and this discontinuity enables impulses to jump from node to node in a process known as saltatory conduction.

Where does the action potential of Ranvier go?

The action potential propagated by one node of Ranvier jumps to and is regenerated at the next node along the axon, thereby enabling the action potential to travel rapidly along the fibre.

What did Andre Victor Cornil call the nodes of Ranvier?

…fibres, now known as the nodes of Ranvier, where discontinuities occur in the nerve’s myelin coating, and discovered nerve terminals between the epithelial cells of the tongue that are now known as Ranvier’s tactile disks. With the French bacteriologist André-Victor Cornil he wrote Manual of Pathological Histology (1869), considered a…