Alexis Fernandez-Preiksa

And this oligodendrocyte produces this fatty myelin and it wraps around in kind of like sheaths, like broken up sheaths along the axon.

And it kind of acts as a conductor.

So it conducts, it's like electricity.

It's like it speeds up the flow of that signal.

Without the myelin, the signal either doesn't arrive, is really disjointed and broken, or it doesn't arrive properly, or it's really slow.

Okay.

So we need the myelin.

It's really, really important.

And there are conditions where the myelin gets attacked, where the immune system attacks the myelin.

And probably the most well-known one is multiple sclerosis, where the immune system is attacking the oligodendrocytes and also the myelin that is being produced.

So that's why there's...

you know like a miscommunication between you know for movement and for things like that and we don't exactly know why but it will attack and then it'll stop so that's why you'll see people with multiple sclerosis be able to have like better seasons where they can move better and seasons where they can't move better depending where this myelin is being attacked and sometimes it's no longer being attacked so it can produce more and then it goes back and forth back and forth okay so definitely not a fun fact but it's a fact about myelin okay

So when we're looking at long-term depression, you're getting less of a myelination, you're getting less.

And that, like I said, that requires a lot of energy.

It requires a lot.

Okay.

So when we stop doing that thing, when we stop reinforcing that thing, that thought, that behavior, that pathway, you're getting weakening, weakening, weakening, weakening, weakening.

Of course, it requires effort.

It requires kind of redirection.

It requires resisting certain things, but that is how the brain works.