Speed read: Tailoring nerve transmissions

When it comes to sending electrical nerve signals, some messages are more urgent than others. Our muscles need to be activated quickly when we are attacked, for instance, while our receptors for chronic pain do not require such a rapid response. To meet these various delivery requirements, nerve fibres differ considerably in the way they transmit and fire signals. Understanding these variations is an ongoing task, but for recording these differences and showing how they relate to nerve design, Joseph Erlanger and Herbert Gasser were awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Erlanger and his student Gasser were interested in developing tools that could measure impulses fired through nerve cells, and they turned to the cathode-ray oscilloscope – an instrument that allows electrical currents to be visualized as a moving two-dimensional graph on a phosphorescent screen. After its invention by Ferdinand Braun, the oscilloscope soon became the most effective tool for detecting rapid changes in electrical voltage, but still it was not sensitive enough to measure the weak and rapid electrical impulses that are fired along nerve cells. Erlanger and Gasser solved this problem by constructing an amplification device which magnified the minute impulses in a single nerve fibre millions of times, so that they became visible as distinctive waves on the screen.

Using their apparatus, Erlanger and Gasser found that stimulating isolated nerves with identical single shocks created a variety of waves on the screen. Deconstructing this complex pattern revealed that nerve fibres conduct impulses at different rates depending on their thickness. On this basis, fibres could be classified into three distinct types, and Erlanger and Gasser also showed that each type requires a stimulus of different intensity to create an impulse. From their observations, Erlanger and Gasser formulated a theory proposing that different fibres transmit different kinds of impulses, where touch travels along thicker, rapidly conducting fibres, while pain is mostly perceived by very thin, slowly conducting fibres. In other words, they showed how the functionality of our central nervous system relies on the precise timing of its tasks.

By Joachim Pietzsch, for Nobelprize.org

This Speed read is an element of the multimedia production “Nerve Signaling”. “Nerve Signaling” is a part of the AstraZeneca Nobel Medicine Initiative.

First published 16 September 2009

Herbert S. Gasser – Nobel Lecture

Nobel Lecture, December 12, 1945

Mammalian Nerve Fibers

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Herbert S. Gasser – Banquet speech

Herbert S. Gasser’s speech at the Nobel Banquet in Stockholm, December 10, 1945

Your Highnesses, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The pleasure of the moment could only be augmented had it been possible for more of the group of which I am a member to have been able to accept the invitation to be here today, and to join with me in bringing messages of friendship from the United States of America. Their wish to come can have been no less than mine. Together, a year ago today, we participated in a most unusual event in which six Nobel awards in science were presented to residents in our country, – in a ceremony that because of the troubled times took place in New York City. In all solemnity, in the name of his Majesty, the King of Sweden, the prizes were distributed by the Swedish Minister to the United States at a luncheon meeting arranged by the American-Scandinavian Foundation.

So high is the world-wide esteem of the judgments of the Nobel Committees, that there could not fail to be present a pardonable element of national rejoicing. It was something far different, however, that caused the occasion to be one never to be forgotten. Chords were struck in which there sounded in harmony sympathetic vibrations between your country and ours, resonant with our mutual love of learning, tolerance, freedom, and peace. And there were overtones of good will that caused the whole, in the ears of a war torn world, to seem to mount to a hymn to the international ideal to which Alfred Nobel devoted his life and his fortune.

By happy chance the selection fell to me to express over the radio the gratitude of four of my colleagues and myself. You will recall that Professor Dam of Denmark also took part. When the greetings of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and of Professor Svedberg began to come forth with beautiful clarity from the loud speakers in the reception room, Sweden indeed seemed near to us. Still, after the words of Professor Svedberg, one felt very deeply that what we wanted to say could only be said adequately if we could have the privilege of grasping you by the hand as we told of our indebtedness.

Through the gracious invitation to attend these ceremonies, the satisfaction of our desire has become possible. But now that I am here, and the heart would speak, it cannot find the words. May I therefore say, quite simply, I thank you.

Joseph Erlanger – Photo gallery

Joseph Erlanger seated in the laboratory.

Source: U.S National Library of Medicine, Images from the History of Medicine Collection Photographer unknown Kindly provided by National Library of Medicine

In the fall of 1947, the Washington University faculty honored three of the University's four Nobel Laureates: Dr. Joseph Erlanger (far left), the 1944 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Drs. Carl F. and Gerty T. Cori, Nobel Laureates in Physiology or Medicine in 1947. Dr. Carl A. Dauten (right), President of the Men's Faculty Club, presents a scroll to the Nobel Laureates.

Four Nobel Laureates at the Washington University. From left to right Dr. Carl F. Cori, Professor of Biochemistry and the 1947 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. Joseph Erlanger, Professor Emeritus of Physiology and the 1944 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Dr. Gerty T. Cori, Professor of Biochemistry and the 1947 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, and Chancellor Arthur H. Compton, the 1927 Nobel Laureate in Physics. Photo taken in 1947.

Nobel Prize