THE AXON AS A NEURISTOR: AN ANALYSIS OF NERVE TRANSMISSION.

Neuristor is the name assigned to the class of devices that exhibits attenuationless signal propagation, as in the attenuationless propagation of a burning zone along a simple chemical fuse, or the attenuationless propagation of an electrical discharge along the axon of a nerve fiber. Early studies have shown that totally distributed electronic lines can be realized that exhibit similar propagation properties futhermore, many different types of lines can be realized, each characterized by different forms of mathematical systems. This report reviews an analysis of nerve transmission from which excellent electrical models and equation forms are derived. A result of the study has been the realization that the propagation along the axon of a nerve fiber, and that along a conceptually rechargeable fuse appear to be fundamentally different, although their terminal properties are identical. Author