Modeling and Simulation of Successful Signal Transmission Without Information Loss in Axon

When a nerve signal propagates through a nerve fiber, it is subject to a number of processes, including those of the extracellular space (ECS) attenuation due to the longitudinal or axial resistance, etc. The information content of the signal is of much importance as it has to reach the desired location with maximum amount to signal having being retained throughout its journey along the fiber. Studies have shown that the nerve anatomy along with the surrounding extracellular medium plays a very important role in facilitating the signal transmission from the site of generation to distant places along the fiber. In this work, effort has been made to understand the similarity of the neuronal signal between two distinct locations of an axon. Initially, an action potential or nerve impulse is considered to be generated at a node of Ranvier, and the similarity of the signal at the subsequent node of Ranvier after propagating via a myelinated segment is computed. The results obtained show that the length of the nerve fiber has a key role to play in retaining the overall information content of the nerve signal, and also it is observed that there must be some critical length of the nerve fiber so that the information is not lost as it propagates from one region of the fiber to the other.