image: Resembling a green octopus, an oligodencrocyte cell extends several cellular tentacles to contact nerve axons (purple) to begin the process of wrapping myelin insulation around individual fibers to form the myelin sheath. Electrical impulses in the axon stimulate the initial events in myelin formation. This image relates to an article that appeared in the Aug. 4, 2011, issue of Science Express, published by AAAS. The study, by Dr. Hiroaki Wake of the National Institutes of Health, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, in Bethesda, Md., and colleagues was titled, "Control of Local Protein Synthesis and Initial Events in Myelination by Action Potentials." view more
Credit: Image courtesy of R. Douglas Fields and Hiroaki Wake, NIH