What is the significance of Helmholtz’s research on the speed of the neural impulse?
Before Helmholtz the speed of the nerve impulse was thought to be instantaneous and beyond the scope of measurement. Helmholtz was the first one to provide solution to this problem. He took frog as the model animal to do his experiment. He took nerves with different lengths, and studied the delay in stimulation of the nerve and the muscle response. The speed of impulse was 90 feet in one second.
Helmholtz was interested to study the reaction times of nerves that were sensory in human subjects. He wanted to study the complete path of a nerve impulse starting from the sensory organ to the motor response.
Helmholtz’s experiment paved the way for future scientists by unfolding the mystery behind conduction of nerve impulse, which was previously thought to be instantaneous, was now proved to be a movement, which followed each other at definite intervals.
Helmholtz was only interested in knowing the length of the neurons. He was not keen to extend his study into the physiological domain. His work was one of the earliest in the field of experimental psychology, where he measured the psycho physiological process. Helmholtz did not carry out experiments to gather his data. In his opinion, scientists should accumulate their resources to extend information and apply it on practical problems.