“Astrocytes are critical responders to disease and disorders of the central nervous system—the brain and spinal cord,” said neuroscientist Joshua Burda, Ph.D., assistant professor of Biomedical Sciences and Neurology at Cedars-Sinai and senior author of the study.

“We discovered that astrocytes far from the site of an injury actually help drive spinal cord repair. Our research also uncovered a mechanism used by these unique astrocytes to signal the immune system to clean up debris resulting from the injury, which is a critical step in the tissue-healing process.”

The investigators dubbed these astrocytes “lesion-remote astrocytes,” or LRAs, and identified several distinct LRA subtypes. Their study describes for the first time how one LRA subtype remotely senses and responds to tissue injury.