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  • Perspective
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The diversity and disparity of the glial scar

Nature Neuroscience volume 21, pages 9–15 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Injury or disease to the CNS results in multifaceted cellular and molecular responses. One such response, the glial scar, is a structural formation of reactive glia around an area of severe tissue damage. While traditionally viewed as a barrier to axon regeneration, beneficial functions of the glial scar have also been recently identified. In this Perspective, we discuss the divergent roles of the glial scar during CNS regeneration and explore the possibility that these disparities are due to functional heterogeneity within the cells of the glial scar—specifically, astrocytes, NG2 glia and microglia.

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Fig. 1: Cellular interactions in the glial scar.
Fig. 2: Tools for assessing functional cellular diversity in glia.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to kindly thank J. Triplett, E. Goldstein and T. Forbes for critically reading the manuscript. This work was supported by R01NS090383 from NINDS (V.G.), U54HD090257 from NICHD (District of Columbia Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center) (V.G.) and F32NS098647 from NINDS (K.L.A.). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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    Katrina L. Adams & Vittorio Gallo

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Adams, K.L., Gallo, V. The diversity and disparity of the glial scar. Nat Neurosci 21, 9–15 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-017-0033-9

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