Terminator-style liquid metal connects severed nerves

Summary:

Jing Liu and his colleagues from Tsinghua University in Beijing, China experimented with bullfrogs to find out if a liquid metal alloy could be applied to let neurons keep on passing signals until it heals fully and then remove the liquid metal alloy. They found that when connecting damaged nerves with a liquid alloy mix of gallium, indium and selenium, which is a good conductor, it helped pass on neuron signals while the nerve healed up. To show how this works, they removed the sciatic nerves of a bullfrog and tested the strength of the electrical impulse and then cut the nerve so they could connect it with the liquid metal alloy. They found that the nerves reconnected with the metal alloy sent signals that were as well as a health nerve signal. In order to test if they could remove the metal alloy, they injected the alloy into a severed frog's leg. They were then easily able to find and remove the alloy using x-rays and a syringe. Liu also hopes that in the future this alloy can be used to encourage nerve development however Mei Zang from Zyno Medical states that it is possible for the metal alloy to get into the bloodstream and poison the human,

Relevance:

This article connects to our unit on Humans I. In Humans I we learned about the peripheral nervous system and how nerve signals travel through nerves. This articles connects to it because we learned that nerve signals travel through the nerve by sending an action potential from a dendrite to an axon. Since the metal alloy is made up of conductors that easily allow electrical signals to pass through, then the metal alloy is able to send along the electrical signal through the nerve as efficiently as the neuron with its action potential.

Author: Lisa Grossman
Date Published: May 2014
Weblink: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25510-terminatorstyle-liquid-metal-connects-severed-nerves.html#.U3mBvfRDtn5