Common brain injury terms

This section is designed to provide a glossary of terms, explaining some of the different words you might hear when reading information on, or talking about, brain injury.

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Your search results for 'Myelin'

Demyelination

Loss of the fatty insulating sheath (myelin) surrounding nerve axons, which impairs their function by interfering with their ability to conduct electrical nerve impulses normally.

Myelin

A fatty insulating sheath, which surrounds nerve axons and improves the efficiency of transmission of the electrical nerve impulses along them.

White matter

White coloured nerve tissue in the brain made up of myelin covered axons, which transmit electrical signals through the nervous system. The white matter lies underneath the grey matter of the cerebral cortex and white matter tracts travel down through the brainstem and into the spinal cord.