The current of injury – also known as the ''demarcation current,'' ''hermann's demarcation current'' or ''injury potential'' – is the

electric current An electric current is a stream of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is measured as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface or into a control volume. The moving pa ...

from the central part of the body to an injured

nerve A nerve is an enclosed, cable-like bundle of nerve fibers (called axons) in the peripheral nervous system. A nerve transmits electrical impulses. It is the basic unit of the peripheral nervous system. A nerve provides a common pathway for the e ...

muscle Skeletal muscles (commonly referred to as muscles) are organs of the vertebrate muscular system and typically are attached by tendons to bones of a skeleton. The muscle cells of skeletal muscles are much longer than in the other types of muscl ...

, or to another injured excitable tissue. The injured tissue has a negative voltage compared to the central part of the body.

History

The concept originates from the research of

Carlo Matteucci Carlo Matteucci (20 or 21 June 1811 – 25 June 1868) was an Italian physicist and neurophysiologist who was a pioneer in the study of bioelectricity. Biography Carlo Matteucci was born at Forlì, in the province of Romagna, to Vincenzo Matt ...

and

Emil du Bois-Reymond Emil Heinrich du Bois-Reymond (7 November 181826 December 1896) was a German physician and physiologist, the co-discoverer of nerve action potential, and the developer of experimental electrophysiology. Life Du Bois-Reymond was born in Berlin a ...

in the mid-19th century. It has later occasionally been used in physiology textbooks, but is now mostly used in connection with heart damages (as listed in e.g. the index of Guyton's ''Textbook of Medical Physiology''). Such manifestations in the heart may be seen in the electrocardiogram as

Osborn wave A J wave — also known as Osborn wave, camel-hump sign, late delta wave, hathook junction, hypothermic wave, K wave, H wave or current of injury — is an abnormal electrocardiogram finding. J waves are positive deflections occurring at the ju ...

s. It has been found by Elmer J. Lund that establishing an artificial

electrical field An electric field (sometimes E-field) is the physical field that surrounds electrically charged particles and exerts force on all other charged particles in the field, either attracting or repelling them. It also refers to the physical field fo ...

causing a current mimicking the current of injury could facilitate

regeneration Regeneration may refer to: Science and technology * Regeneration (biology), the ability to recreate lost or damaged cells, tissues, organs and limbs * Regeneration (ecology), the ability of ecosystems to regenerate biomass, using photosynthesis ...

. This potential for a regeneration therapy was further studied by Robert O. Becker, who described this work in his book ''The Body Electric''. He found that the current of injury runs through the

perineurium The perineurium is a protective sheath that surrounds a nerve fascicle. This bundles together axons targeting the same anatomical location. The perineurium is composed from fibroblasts. In the peripheral nervous system, the myelin sheath of each ...

– through the

myelin sheath Myelin is a lipid-rich material that surrounds nerve cell axons (the nervous system's "wires") to insulate them and increase the rate at which electrical impulses (called action potentials) are passed along the axon. The myelinated axon can be l ...

s of the

peripheral nerves The peripheral nervous system (PNS) is one of two components that make up the nervous system of bilateral animals, with the other part being the central nervous system (CNS). The PNS consists of nerves and ganglia, which lie outside the brain a ...

References

{{Reflist Nervous system