cells, which opened an avenue for more funding and a flourish of research. Later the bystander effect was also researched with regard to cells damaged by radiation or mechanical injury and therefore wound healing. Disease also seems to have an effect on the ability of gap junctions to fulfill their roles in wound healing. The oral administration of gap junction blockers to reduce the symptoms of disease in remote parts of the body is slowly becoming a reality. Tissue restructuring While there has been a tendency to focus on the bystander effect in disease due to the possibility of therapeutic avenues there is evidence that there is a more central role in normal development of tissues. Death of some cells and their surrounding matrix may be required for a tissue to reach its final configuration and gap junctions also appear essential to this process. There are also more complex studies that try to combine our understanding of the simultaneous roles of gap junctions in both wound healing and tissue development. Areas of electrical coupling Gap junctions electrically and chemically couple cells throughout the body of most animals. Electrical coupling can be relatively fast acting. Tissues in this section have well known functions observed to be coordinated by gap junctions with inter-cellular signaling happening in time frames of micro-seconds or less. Heart Gap junctions are particularly important in cardiac muscle: the signal to contract is passed efficiently through gap junctions, allowing the heart muscle cells to contract in unison. Neurons A gap junction located in neurons is often referred to as an electrical synapse. The electrical synapse was discovered using electrical measurements before the gap junction structure was described. Electrical synapses are present throughout the central nervous system and have been studied specifically in the neocortex, hippocampus, vestibular nucleus, thalamic reticular nucleus, locus coeruleus, inferior olivary nucleus, mesencephalic nucleus of the trigeminal nerve, ventral tegmental area, olfactory bulb, retina and spinal cord of vertebrates. There has been some observation of weak neuron to glial cell coupling in the locus coeruleus, and in the cerebellum between Purkinje neurons and Bergmann glial cells. It appears that astrocytes are coupled by gap junctions, both to other astrocytes and to oligodendrocytes. Moreover, mutations in the gap junction genes Cx43 and Cx56.6 cause white matter degeneration similar to that observed in Pelizaeus–Merzbacher disease and multiple sclerosis. Connexin proteins expressed in neuronal gap junctions include: mCX36 mCX57