Wounded Skin Cells Emit Electrical Signals to Aid Healing Process

New studies show that skin cells release a series of slow electrical pulses following an injury. It’s these pulses that might be key to helping the wound healing process. With this dramatic discovery, Sun-Min Yu and Steve Granick unleashed enormous experimental power. They elaborated on their discoveries in a paper published March 25 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research really came down to the electrical activity of skin cells in a two-dimensional world, one cell deep. Scientists wanted to see if and how these cells talk after an injury, even looking at the types of electrical spikes that these injured cells let loose. The software had only been programmed to identify the quicker-moving nerve cell pulses. It subsequently missed any slower pulse that would have come at a beat longer than 500 milliseconds.

So I requested that the software engineer release that constraint. Then it worked! Yu shouted about the breakthrough that allowed the detection of these overlooked warning signals.

Once that constraint was removed, researchers found that these electrical spikes move at a snail’s pace compared to nerve impulses. These collisions typically occur over just one or two seconds, depending on the sensing technology, from at least 500 micrometers away—which is on the order of about 40 cells distance. The slow propagation is really important. Since these spikes can be sustained over five hours, they are likely key in the process of signaling nearby cells to eject damaged components and initiate the replication process for restoration.

As Granick urged, it’s important to be patient with this research. She knew from the outset that she had a long, slow haul of measurements ahead of her. This lightning fast pace of signal transmission came close to making Yu miss these electrical messages entirely.

This pioneering study has uncovered compelling evidence of time’s positive and negative effects on wound healing. Combined, these findings give further insight into the healing process. Even skin cells have been shown to produce endogenous electrical signals following wounding. This newfound ability suggests an orchestrated dance in cellular communication that could be crucial for optimal healing.