Posted on 03/19/2025 5:36:11 AM PDT by Red Badger
Scientists discover “electric spiking” communication in previously thought to be mute cells, paving the way for bioelectric innovations.
For years, scientists believed that only nerve and heart cells relied on electrical impulses for communication, while epithelial cells, which form the linings of the skin, organs, and body cavities, were thought to be passive barriers, primarily absorbing and secreting substances. However, researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst have challenged this assumption, demonstrating that epithelial cells do, in fact, communicate through slow electrical signals.
The study, led by Steve Granick, Robert K. Barrett Professor of Polymer Science and Engineering, and postdoctoral fellow Sun-Min Yu, was recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Their findings could pave the way for advancements in wearable bioelectric sensors, wound healing, and other biomedical applications.
“Epithelial cells do things that no one has ever thought to look for,” says Granick. “When injured, they ‘scream’ to their neighbors, slowly, persistently, and over surprising distances. It’s like a nerve’s impulse, but 1,000 times slower.” His team’s curiosity-driven approach, blending polymer science and biology, unveiled this hidden cellular signaling.
Epithelial Cell Coated Chip Graphic
Granick and Yu used an epithelial-cell-coated chip with 60 precisely placed electrodes that could detect minute electric shifts. Credit: UMass Amherst Granick and Yu used an epithelial-cell-coated chip with 60 precisely placed electrodes to eavesdrop. Yu, a cell-culture expert, grew a single layer of human epithelial cells on the chip, which detected minute electric shifts.
Observing Cellular Communication in Action
Using a precise laser to produce “sting” patterns of individual cells, they watched as signals rippled outward. “We tracked how cells coordinated their response,” Yu explained. “It’s a slow-motion, excited conversation.”
Unlike the swift neurotransmitter bursts of nerve cells, epithelial cells rely on ion flows — of calcium, especially — that produce signals that are far slower than those in nerve cells, but with similar voltages. These signals can be long-lived: Granick and Yu observed cells that “talked” for over five hours across distances nearly 40 times their own length.
Though Granick and Yu showed that calcium ions are necessary for epithelial conversation, they have yet to test what else might contribute to the conversation. And though the immediate applications of their new discovery remain to be seen, the implications are vast.
“Wearable sensors, implantable devices, and faster wound healing could grow from this,” Granick noted. “Understanding these screams between wounded cells opens doors we didn’t know existed,” Yu added.
Reference:
“Electric spiking activity in epithelial cells”
by Sun-Min Yu and Steve Granick, 17 March 2025, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2427123122
Well, we are constantly told that the serum provided by many products producing hydration is necessary to resolve the screaming skin issues
I hear my epithelial cells yakking all the time…
Yeah, it sounds more like a passive chemical change in localized properties of conductivity than the implication that it’s some sort of active electrical communication. Perhaps I am nitpicking if I read it right, because even the changes in conductivity results in a form of signalling.
While their screams are inaudible for me, I can feel their pain. It seems as though itching helps them cope. It helps me at any rate. 😋
OK, that is wild science... But I think we all pretty much knew this was the case when our skin yells out “That hurt!”.
Oh my now some people will never get to sleep
anyone who has ever suffered severe sunburn will agree with the screaming skin theory. the skin literally SCREAMS! it’s hard to hear over your literal screaming... but it does.
Isn’t that what causes goosebumps and hair standing on end?
“the skin literally SCREAMS!”
Yep, sure does! You have heard about Colloidal Silver I’m sure. The theory is that with skin cuts it reconnects the severed electrical connections and therefore reduces pain by closing those circuits again. Along with it’s antimicrobial properties.
I don’t know if it would work for sunburn or not though. :)
“Isn’t that what causes goosebumps and hair standing on end?”
Side effect of heightened primal subconscious awareness.
“Doc, I can’t get the screams from my skin out of my mind!”
Doc “pour salt in your eye, it will take your mind off the screaming skin”
You are correct.. it’s consciousness. Without it, there is no life.
It is funny how it works too. On one hand it instantly produces situational awareness as a defense, such as seeing a piece of rope or something similar that appears to be a snake out of our peripheral vision.
Yet it can come from pleasure of the creative part of the brain such as when we hear a fantastic music piece that makes our hair stand on end. I haven’t quite figured out yet how it can be sourced from both primal instincts at the brain stem and from the creative mind too.
Like you I am sure the conscious soul is the wrapper for it all that we just have not acknowledged yet. It is the “Carrier wave” like in radio transmissions and reception for the content.
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