I made a picture to represent how the breakdown of the myelin sheath from MS affects the electrical impulses in our nerves. You can see one cell has full sheaths and the other doesn’t. The impulses are full and travel down the entirety of the axon in the healthy cell. In the MS affected cell the impulses barely go through the axon. In my paper I also talk about how MS comes about, symptoms and what can be done to correct the problems that arise from it.

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  1. Matt did his STEAM project on multiple sclerosis (MS). He expands on the objective of “Explain how neurons carry an electrical charge”. MS impacts this process we learned about and provides us insight into what happens when this process is disturbed. He explains that MS is a disease that gets the immune system to attack parts of the central nervous system (CNS). Matt goes on to explain that it is more likely to be found in females and it is about 120 per 100,000. The immune system targets and starts to destroy the myelin sheath which Matt demonstrates in his drawing of multiple sclerosis in the myelin sheath. Matt explains that this process can create a plaque that leads to neuronal cell death and physical and mental incapacitation. Although it is not known exactly what the causes are, it is believed to be influenced by smoking, genetics, vitamin deficiencies and possible exposure to infectious material.
    There are four different types of multiple sclerosis: relapse-remitting, secondary progressive, primary progressive, and finally, progressive-relapsing multiple sclerosis. Symptoms can be helped but there is no cure at the moment. Matt talks on how multiple sclerosis goes beyond the objective by telling us what can happen when the central nervous system breaks. He demonstrates in his drawing how the axon terminals are separated and action potentials are throughout until the next cell. He shows us that every piece works together to make the nervous system work and how if one piece is gone, the whole thing can come crumbling down. His watercolor painting shows the flow of the natural electronic impulse that flows through these cells and now in the normal cell the impulse flows smooth and strong but then in the second cell, it is almost non-existent because of the myelin sheath damage from multiple sclerosis.

    Garrett Taylor

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