How fast nerve signals

A larger time component is the delay between an impulse and the actual transmission of that response by your nerves. And that is what nerve damage is about.

If a nerve is damaged it takes longer before the nerve transmits a signal. This is an area that will be under investigation for years to come. You are asking a very important question. Already a subscriber? Want more? More From Discover. Recommendations From Our Store.

Stay Curious. View our privacy policy. Some nerve cells have myelin cells that wrap around the neuron to provide a type of insulation sheath. Nerve signals effectively jump from exposed section to exposed section instead of traveling the full extent of the neuronal surface.

The message will get to New York sooner if it passes from cellphone tower to cellphone tower than if the courier drives the message along each and every inch of the road.

Consider the sprinter at a starting line. All that can happen in literally half the time of a blink of an eye. Although the time to initiate a sprint start is extremely short, a variety of factors can influence it.

Researchers think this triggered response emerges through activation of neural centers in the brain stem. These startle-elicited responses may be quicker because they involve a relatively shorter and less complex neural system — one that does not necessarily require the signal to travel all the way up to the more complex structures of the cerebral cortex.

Involuntary reflexes, too, involve shorter and simpler circuitry and tend to take less time to execute than voluntary responses. In studies, researchers ask volunteers to watch a second hand rotate around a clock face and to complete a simple rapid finger or wrist movement, such as a key press, whenever they liked.

After the clock hand had completed its rotation, the people were asked to identify where the hand was on the clock face when they started their own movement. Surprisingly, people typically judge the onset of their movement to occur ms prior to when it actually began. This difference cannot be accounted for simply by the time it takes for the movement commands to travel from the brain to the arm muscles which is on the order of ms. These and other findings raise important questions about the planning and control of action and our sense of agency and control in the world — because our decision to act and our perception of when we act appear to be distinct from when we in fact do.