page_title: Node of Ranvier
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Node of Ranvier / History
caption_attribution_description: The French pathologist Louis-Antoine Ranvier
context_page_description: Nodes of Ranvier, also known as myelin-sheath gaps, occur along a myelinated axon where the axolemma is exposed to the extracellular space. Nodes of Ranvier are uninsulated and highly enriched in ion channels, allowing them to participate in the exchange of ions required to regenerate the action potential. Nerve conduction in myelinated axons is referred to as saltatory conduction due to the manner in which the action potential seems to "jump" from one node to the next along the axon. This results in faster conduction of the action potential.
context_section_description: The myelin sheath of long nerves was discovered and named by German pathological anatomist Rudolf Virchow in 1854.  French pathologist and anatomist Louis-Antoine Ranvier later discovered the nodes, or gaps, in the myelin sheath that now bear his name. Born in Lyon, Ranvier was one of the most prominent histologists of the late 19th century. Ranvier abandoned pathological studies in 1867 and became an assistant of physiologist Claude Bernard. He was the chairman of General Anatomy at the Collège de France in 1875.
  His refined histological techniques and his work on both injured and normal nerve fibers became world-renowned. His observations on fiber nodes and the degeneration and regeneration of cut fibers had a great influence on Parisian neurology at the Salpêtrière. Soon afterwards, he discovered gaps in sheaths of nerve fibers, which were later called the Nodes of Ranvier.   This discovery later led Ranvier to careful histological examination of myelin sheaths and Schwann cells.
caption: Louis Antoine Ranvier (1835–1922)
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