Summary: In response to injury, microglia cross the spinal boundary from the central nervous system to the peripheral nervous system. While in the PNS, microglia provide the function of clearing cellular debris at the point of injury, then return to the CNS in an altered state. Researchers propose this could account for some damage associated with neurodegenerative diseases.
Source: Notre Dame University
Inside the body, disease and injury can leave behind quite the mess — a scattering of cellular debris, like bits of broken glass, rubber, and steel left behind in a car accident.
Inside the central nervous system (CNS), a region that includes the brain and spinal cord, it is the job of certain cells, called microglia, to clean up that cellular debris. Microglia have counterparts called macrophages that serve similar function outside the CNS in the peripheral nervous system (PNS), the region that contains most of the sensory and motor nerves.
Scientists have long believed that microglia are restricted to the CNS, and in cases of injury the two cells clean up their own sides of the highway, so to speak.
