hand wrinkles and healthy nerve fibers

[Guest guest]

From

http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/techscience/story/0,4386,256148,00.html?

Wrinkles are a good sign

Fret not about shrivelled fingertips after a swim: The more you wrinkle,

the healthier your nerve fibres are. It's key to new test for nerve

damage

By Soh

The wrinkles on your fingertips after a soak in the pool could be the

key to diagnosing nerve damage.

The National University of Singapore and the National University

Hospital are trying to use this mundane happening to create a simple,

cheap and fast screening method.

It could help diagnose diabetic, HIV-positive or leprosy patients, said

Associate Professor Einar Wilder- of the hospital's neurology

department.

'It's not osmosis shrivelling the skin - so you can ignore mum when she

tells you to get out of the pool before all your fluids are sucked out

and you turn into a prune.

'Instead, it's actually the result of tiny nerve fibres, that reach all

the way into your fingertips, reacting to the external stimuli.'

The palm is so porous - it has 400 to 500 sweat pores - that water can

seep in comparatively easily, diluting the body's own liquids and

changing the electrolyte values.

This makes the nerve fibres fire up more rapidly and shrinks tiny blood

vessels in the fingers. As they shrink, they pull the skin around them,

causing wrinkles.

So the more you wrinkle, the healthier your nerve fibres are.

This can help doctors diagnose nerve atrophy or damage resulting from

conditions like diabetes or leprosy. The HIV virus, responsible for

Aids, also attacks nerves.

Prof Wilder- said 10 per cent of Singaporeans have diabetes, and

half of them will end up with nerve damage.

Nerve damage may cause a burning in the extremities, in extreme cases

leading to amputation.

To check the condition of small nerve fibres now, doctors gouge a piece

of skin out before examining the palm under the microscope.

Or doctors can use the wrinkle test - employing a scale which links the

wrinkling with the level of damage, although this is still subjective

and prone to error.

Now the university's engineering department may have found a way to

reduce the human error factor.

Undergraduate Leo Liting has written an algorithm for software to spot,

measure and count wrinkles on digital photos of fingers.

Her supervisor Ong Sim Heng said: 'All you need is a digital photo from

a run-of-the-mill camera.'

The computer can compare before and after pictures and measure the

wrinkles. For the test, the nerves are stimulated with anaesthetic, not

water.

Prof Wilder- said: 'It can be a bit inconvenient to carry a bucket

of water around.'

The system is being tested on HIV patients and has shown a 'good degree

of accuracy'.

Now the dons have to create a database of tests and readings to teach

the software to interpret the wrinkles.

The next step will be to test the software more thoroughly before

putting it to clinical use in about three years.