Replacing a neuron by an artificial connection

[Mohamed Amine LABIDI]

we know the fact that nerve cell can receives, processes, and transmits information through electrical and chemical signals and actually i am an 2nd years electric and automatic engineer so when it come to the field of biology i am not so good so if you try to make a special thread that can transmit information to another cell to those people how their neurone has been injured and can't be cured if we just think of a possibility to make the information pass through a special thread that can transmit the information from nerve cell to another cell that has it been cut that can exchange the information through those threads.
i wish if this can be possible those how know and understand the biology can help explain if this can be possible and what it's need to be done and if not why explain to me also.

 

[.Scott]

If you are referring to spinal cord injuries, the problem is that there is a single nerve cell that runs from the base of the brain to the motor or sensory location. So you are not trying to transmit from one cell to another but between two broken pieces of a single cell.

There was a recent news article (about 3 weeks ago) reporting that some researchers had bypassed a section of a brain (mouse as I recall) with some beneficial effects. I will look for a citation.

 

[.Scott]

It is also noteworthy that how neurons communicate is still being explored.
This paper was release just this past week:
http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(17)31504-0

It reports that there is a protein produced in the brain called "Arc" that acts like a virus to insert RNA into a neuron.

 

[Mohamed Amine LABIDI]

thanks that resume the problem the fact that spinal cord is a single cell it's another problem.
But i thought that if we can do this reaction between two cell artificially

 

[BillTre]

To my knowledge, there is no artificial thing that can replace thing you drew (red to blue).

It might be possible to replace your inserted element with another (artificially placed neuron), but I don't think that has been done yet either.
This would depend on the cut end of the damaged neuron (on the left) generating a new functioning synapse.

Here are some problems replacing a neuron would have:
1) Neurons are not just a wire conductor. They are more like a tubular capacitor that can propagate temporary changes in conductance across the insulator (the neuron's cell membrane) down the length of the cylinder. The resulting change in potential across the membrane is the action potential. There is not current flow to any significant extent down the length of the axon.
2) The communication between different neurons is usually by chemical neurotransmitters. They are made in one neuron and released after an action potential arrives. The receiving neuron makes receptors for the specific nuerotransmitter released and uses those in a complex process to appropriately start their own action potentials.
3) Neurons usually grow synapses where there is another cell ready to be the other side of the synapse. This involves specific signalling at a sub-cellular level for synapses to develop in the right place.
4) There are usually lots of neurons and they are really small. It would take many very small things to replace the damaged neurons in situations where such a repair would be contemplated.

The most common current research approach for repairing this kind of problem would be to promote regeneration of the damaged neurons. Animals like salamanders and invertebrates can often regenerate significant amounts of damage. Researchers want to find out why we are different from those animals and figure out how to convince our nervous systems to go through those regeneration steps so that neural connectivity could be restored.

 

[Mohamed Amine LABIDI]

Thanks for your explanation i think to regenerate the cell it's better nothing can replace the original i have to give up on this illogical idea maybe in the future someone can reach something better.