Promoting nerve growth?

My current understanding is that one of the the major reasons the magnets are implanted in fingertips is because we have more nerves there, which leads to more sensitivity than other locations can offer. Is this accurate?

If so, are there any ways to promote nerve growth in other spots, such as, say, the ankle? Perhaps electrical stimulation?
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  • maybe a locally injected neurotrophin....?
  • @glims: I'd be interested in hearing more about that. Doing some reading up on it right now, but if you'd be willing to share your knowledge, that'd be terrific.
  • I actually don't know that much on nerve growth factors. Anything you can hunt down on the topic will probably as much as I can tell you. If you run into any papers you want behind the firewalls, let me know.
  • I actually was taking Lion's Mane extract when my fingertip magnet was healing to try and increase sensitivity.  I didn't have a control to compare it to, it being my first magnet, so I don't know how significant of an effect it had.
  • @CitrusBolt

    Out of curiosity can you give more details about how much you were taking, how often, were you stacking that with anything else, and saying that you have stopped taking it have you noticed any less sensations that the extract possibly helped enhance?
  • edited March 2014
    I just found my bottle and it was not an extract, but whole material.  This was back in August, but I think I was taking 1g of mycelium twice daily.  At the time, I believe I had an elevated Vitamin C intake and was taking Piracetam and Alpha-GPC.  I know I had Sunifiram, but I'm pretty sure I stopped taking it during the healing process.  Unfortunately, the implant was not placed deep enough, so I had to remove it once the scab came off.
  • If I remember correctly, nerve end growth during development is based on chemotaxis in neuron growth cones, using attractants secreted by the receptor cells. Potentially something like this could be done by having soluble factors in an implant coating which slowly degrades after implanting (over the regular bioproof coating of course) though quite possibly the mixture you were using had something like this.

    Though you'd also want something to stimulate growth of the touch receptors themselves (presumably Pacinian corpuscles which detect heavy pressure?) as I'm pretty sure free nerve endings are responsible for pain sensors, which would be a less than ideal way to increase sensitivity.

    Though I may be barking up the wrong tree if those specific pathways are only active during early development, since altering cells in vivo to behave like stem cells is a whole different issue.

  • this is something i am currently skimming the web for on my limited free time as well. i think you can play with this aspect a lot in terms of how clean the cut is and how much danage the nerves take throughout the actual procedure of the implant. obsidian scalpel is one method but they are like $80 a piece. i am looking into how they are manufactured to be able to perhaps provide a lower cost alternative. i have already sourced the stone to start playing with. i found this article that kinda touches on what we are looking into. but not so much the flesh aspect of it, more skin oriented. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8415970
    http://obsidian-scalpel.blogspot.com/2012/12/surgeon-use-for-obsidian-scalpel-blades.html
    The thought of a local regrown promotion agent hadn't really appeared as feasible to me. i would like to bring better tek to the people that are doing it themselves or with friends because its kinda a hack job right now.
    i thought this was pretty interesting. my one concern with obsidian was the brittleness of it. although we are talking about fingers not a major operation. much cheaper than plasma sharpened diamonds.
    Modern, and very recently-developed synthetic diamond scalpel blades have a "sharpness" of 3 nanometers or better. This is achieved through plasma-polishing. This gives a blade edge of about 30 angstroms. 1 angstrom, is about one atom's width. These modern blades have been processed to be more sturdy than before, without as much brittleness problems than earlier blades
  • Nightgaunt: I'm actually think we're talking more Meisners Corpuscles than Pacinian.
    A good associated read:

    Neurotrophins cause a new sensation - WD Snider, DE Wright - Neuron, 1996 - yadda.icm.edu.pl

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