{"id":228247,"date":"2026-01-02T22:19:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/how-do-spinal-cord-injuries-heal"},"modified":"2026-01-02T22:19:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T04:19:30","slug":"how-do-spinal-cord-injuries-heal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/how-do-spinal-cord-injuries-heal","title":{"rendered":"How do spinal cord injuries heal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-do-spinal-cord-injuries-heal.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Investigators looked at laboratory mice with spinal cord injury and found that lesion-remote astrocytes (LRAs) play an important role in supporting nervous system repair. They saw strong evidence of the same mechanism in tissue samples from human patients with spinal cord injury.<\/p>\n<p>The Lab identified one LRA subtype that sends out a protein called CCN1 to signal to immune cells called microglia.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne function of microglia is to serve as chief garbage collectors in the central nervous system,\u201d the senior author said. \u201cAfter tissue damage, they eat up pieces of nerve fiber debris\u2014which are very fatty and can cause them to get a kind of indigestion. Our experiments showed that astrocyte CCN1 signals the microglia to change their metabolism so they can better digest all that fat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The author said this efficient debris clearing might have a role in the spontaneous recovery found in many patients with spinal cord injury. In the absence of the astrocyte-derived CCN1 protein, the investigators found that recovery is drastically impaired.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we remove astrocyte CCN1, the microglia eat, but they don\u2019t digest. They call in more microglia, which also eat but don\u2019t digest,\u201d the author said. \u201cBig clusters of debris-filled microglia form, heightening inflammation up and down the spinal cord. And when that happens, the tissue doesn\u2019t repair as well.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When investigators looked at spinal cord tissue from human patients with multiple sclerosis, they found the same mechanism at work, the author said and added that these fundamental principles of tissue repair likely apply to any sort of injury of the brain or spinal cord.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/how-do-spinal-cord-injuries-heal\">Continue reading \u201cHow do spinal cord injuries heal?\u201d | &gt;<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Investigators looked at laboratory mice with spinal cord injury and found that lesion-remote astrocytes (LRAs) play an important role in supporting nervous system repair. They saw strong evidence of the same mechanism in tissue samples from human patients with spinal cord injury. The Lab identified one LRA subtype that sends out a protein called CCN1 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-228247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228247\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}