Understanding the axonal response to injury by in vivo imaging in the mouse spinal cord: A tale of two branches.

This article reviews evidence from in vivo spinal cord imaging that axonal branches markedly impact the degenerative and regenerative responses to injury. At a major bifurcation point, depending on whether one or both axonal branches are injured, neurons may choose either a more self-preservative response or a more dynamic response. The stabilizing effect of the spared branch may underlie a well-known divergence in neuronal responses to injury, and illustrates an example where in vivo spinal cord imaging reveals insights that are difficult to elucidate with conventional histological methods. PMID: 30986398 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Experimental Neurology - Category: Neurology Authors: Tags: Exp Neurol Source Type: research