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Selective (Prioritizable) Healing

What is it? It is the ability to choose which wound do you want to start healing first, or at least, which wound do you want regen faster slowering the rest of wounds.

I want to know the feasibility of this ability:

  • How can be explained that your neuronal system is able to prioritize heal a certain wound?
  • If a wound can be prioritize, at which speed it will be possible to heal? How much would another wounds be slowed?

P.S: With healing I am talking about human-level healing.

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  • $\begingroup$ Please explain how non-selective regeneration works in your world. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Dec 6, 2017 at 16:27
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    $\begingroup$ What @sphennings said: how does regeneration actually work? Are we talking about plain old wound generation as in real life or what? $\endgroup$
    – MichaelK
    Dec 6, 2017 at 16:37
  • $\begingroup$ @sphennings, non-selectivew regeneration is literally our regeneration, we can't choose which would we want to heal first. $\endgroup$
    – Ender Look
    Dec 6, 2017 at 16:42
  • $\begingroup$ @EnderLook The healing that humans do after being injured isn't normally called regeneration, especially in works of fiction where regeneration can allow beings to regrow limbs in minutes and survive injuries that would otherwise be considered lethal. Most questions talking about regeneration on this site are talking about the fantastic not the mundane. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Dec 6, 2017 at 16:48
  • $\begingroup$ @sphennings, ups, sorry. I've just made a clarification about the healing. $\endgroup$
    – Ender Look
    Dec 6, 2017 at 16:51

3 Answers 3

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I'm not sure that this is really possible, or that you would notice any difference...

If I make two cuts on my arm they will both heal at the same time, at the same speed (assuming they are both cared for properly and treated the same). Having a second cut does not stop the first from healing.
A wound heals in stages, and there is a reason for this. If a wound instantly closed and flesh and skin knitted back together then any dirt, bacteria or foreign objects could become trapped inside the body, causing infections or even blood poisoning.
So you want your body to protect the area, but also to flush out anything nasty before beginning the process of repairing the area.

In the case of a large number of serious injuries it's probably the case that healing is delayed but more due to your body being weakened than the actual number of injuries.

On the flip side, if it were possible then the other wounds that are not prioritised may remain open, leading to greater chance of infections and other complications. So all in all although one wound healed quicker the overall effect would be worse for you.

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  • $\begingroup$ With priorize the healing of a wound I was talking about increase the amount of "resources" (O2 and nutrients) and stem cells (if they are used) in a certain area, decreasing this amount in the rest of wounds. $\endgroup$
    – Ender Look
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:49
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    $\begingroup$ @EnderLook But if all wounds heal at an equal speed already, then stopping one from healing will not give you any 'extra' resources for the others. And if you can send extra resources to one wound you should be able to do so to all wounds, because other wounds aren't taking up any of these resources. $\endgroup$
    – adaliabooks
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:52
  • $\begingroup$ Sorry but I can't understand you. Think about this example: You have 2 workers and there is a broken wall (it has 2 holes). You can send one worker to each hole, or send both workers to the same hole to fix it faster. Something like that I am talking about. $\endgroup$
    – Ender Look
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:54
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    $\begingroup$ @EnderLook It's more like there are two holes in the wall and the bricks surrounding the holes create more bricks in the correct place. You could stop the bricks surrounding one hole from working but that won't speed up the work at the other hole. $\endgroup$
    – sphennings
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:57
  • $\begingroup$ Ah, Good point. I was thinking maybe in move the bricks, but that is impossible :). $\endgroup$
    – Ender Look
    Dec 6, 2017 at 18:00
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Wound healing isn't controlled by the nervous system. Clotting happens automatically when blood vessels are ruptured. Similarly the inflammatory response is triggered by chemicals released from ruptured cells at the injury site.

In very simple terms healing is the regrowth of the injured area. This production of new cells is the same process that cells are produced constantly throughout the body. (Somewhere between 50 and 80 Billion cells are replaced every day). The only difference is that instead of only producing enough cells to replace existing ones, a surplus are needed to create new tissues.

As long as a human is otherwise healthy, wound healing isn't affected by the number of wounds. It could be possible to retard the healing of one wound site, probably by restricting the flow of blood to it. This wouldn't have any benefit though since the limiting factor is the rate of tissue formation not resources.

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  • $\begingroup$ Got distracted while typing my answer and you beat me to it +1 $\endgroup$
    – adaliabooks
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:17
  • $\begingroup$ With priorize the healing of a wound I was talking about increase the amount of "resources" (O2 and nutrients) and stem cells (if they are used) in a certain area, decreasing this amount in the rest of wounds. But I see that you are saying that resources aren't the limiting factor in the healing rate. $\endgroup$
    – Ender Look
    Dec 6, 2017 at 17:50
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Well first we need a system that actually supports selective regeneration over general regeneration which our bodies aren't currently designed for.

Stem cells are one of the principal components in regeneration being able to transform themselves into a variety of destroyed cells. One organelle in particular that is exceptional in producing and distributing stem cells is the bone marrow. Bone marrow is also what produces platelets which are responsible for clotting and forming the scaffolding needed to repair tissue.

Next we need to detect where damage is that needs to be repaired. Fortunately the human nervous system is fairly good at this as that is one of its primary responsibilities.

So to make this possible the nervous system needs a connection to a construct near bone marrow locations that can increase the metabolilc process of that bone marrow site. That would increase platelet and stem cell production. The triggered bone marrow site would be located upstream (bloodstream) of the injured area.

This could be designed to be autonomous or cognitively activated.

Is this feasible? sort of , is this controllable? not entirely as it is just increasing healing in general areas.

If you need more control, speed , and precision I suggest just resorting to nano machines in the blood.

How fast can it heal? I would guess the max speed any penetrating wound could be healed in would be roughly 4-8hrs. That estimate is fairly handwavium as you would need to tweak the metabolic speed of the cells themselves. Without that you would be looking at days since the full length of mitosis occurs in roughly 16-20hrs.

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