White matter (white matter) is one of the two basic components of the human nervous system. It is made up of a network of nerve fibers whose task is to send impulses between the bodies of various nerve cells. In the past, it was believed that white matter did not play a major role in the functioning of the brain, but it is now known that various pathological processes that may affect it, can even have a significant negative impact on the quality of life of patients.
White matter(Latinwhite matter ,substantia alba ) is one of the two the basic tissues that make up the nervous system. It is simply not enough to say that the human nervous system is extremely complicated. The number of nerve cells alone - which are the basic unit building this system - is counted in billions.
As for many years scientists did not really know much about the functions and structure of the nervous system, now much more is known about them (for example, many neurotransmitters that are involved in the transmission of information between individual nerve cells have already been known). However, one of the first aspects that concerned the structure of the brain, which researchers were able to discover, was that it has two basic components, which are white matter and gray matter.
White matter (white matter): structure
White matter (also known as white matter) is made of nerve cell fibers (dendrites and axons) that are surrounded by the myelin sheath. The white substance owes its color to the fact that the myelin sheaths are rich in fatty compounds, which give it a whitish shade.
Its name is a bit misleading, because in fact, in the human body, it has a light pink color, which is due to the rich vascularization of nerve fibers. So where did the name white matter come from? Well, first of all, because in histological preparations, prepared with the use of formaldehyde, the white matter takes on a whitish color.
Within the brain, white matter is located in its internal parts, or more precisely, it is located under the superficial gray matter.
It basically includes very diverse fibersnervous, because both commissural fibers (connecting both hemispheres of the brain with each other), associative fibers (extending only within one hemisphere of the brain), and projective fibers (which extend to the cerebral cortex). The distribution of white matter in the other part of the central nervous system, i.e. in the spinal cord, is completely different. This is because in it the white matter surrounds the gray being in the middle.
White matter (white matter): role in the functioning of the nervous system
In the past, it was suspected that gray matter - which includes the bodies of nerve cells - plays a fundamental role in the functioning of the nervous system, and white matter only serves supportive and rather not essential functions. Over time, however, with subsequent research carried out, it turned out that the reality was somewhat different. It is mentioned that the degree of white matter development is related to human IQ.
More and more is known about the fact that white matter depends on the course of human thought processes, as well as the ability to remember and concentrate attention. We also found that white matter abnormalities - which may be caused by various diseases - may lead to the appearance of various movement disorders in patients (including disturbances in gait or balance). Considering the above, it is clearly visible that the role of white matter in the functioning of the nervous system cannot be underestimated.
An interesting fact about white matter is that its development is slightly different than that of gray matter. As the development of the latter usually ends shortly after entering the second decade of life, the development of white matter may continue until the 20th, and according to some researchers even up to the 50th year of life.
White matter (white matter): diseases
There are more diseases in which the course of various types of white matter damage than one might imagine. Changes within it occur in the course of diseases related to autoimmunity (such as multiple sclerosis or Guillain-Barré syndrome), but also in the case of neurodegenerative diseases (such as, for example, Alzheimer's disease).
There is also more and more talk about the fact that dysfunctions in white matter may be related to the occurrence of mental disorders and diseases in humans - the connections of such a problem have already been described, e.g. with depression, schizophrenia, ADHD and post-traumatic stress disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Ailments that affect white matter usually carry with themdeplorable consequences - this situation comes from the fact that the damage that occurs within the white matter of the brain cannot be reversed.