Nerves are not wires
A weekly nugget or two of pain science news and ideas for patients and pros, usually 400–1000 words. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.
Here’s an interesting example of how “wiring” and “plumbing” analogies only go so far in biology. Notice the nerve movement in this little imaging video:
Gotta love #EyeMovements! Look at how much the optic nerves move!!! ❤️#fMRI. Source: https://t.co/GJJEhZPtx1 pic.twitter.com/wvBc8UYQXi
— Matthias Nau (@NauMatt) February 19, 2020
If those optic nerves were wires, you could heat ‘em up and break ‘em by watching a tennis match. But of course nerves are much more robust than wires! We don’t get overuse injuries of the optic nerve.