So I'm heading out to an REU for the summer on Tuesday with a lab that studies glial cells and their various awesomenesses. Anyways, as part of what I needed to do to prepare for the work, one of the post-docs in the lab sent me a selection of articles to read before I came. Just finished reading them, and this was my general impression:

After brain injury, glial cells, and astrocytes in particular, form protective boundaries around the injury keeping the damage in check and making sure it does not spread. In addition to this, these reactive astrocytes also being to dedifferentiate to a nearly progenitor or neural stem cell (NSC) like state (in vivo; in vitro, the cells can be made to completely dedifferentiate into NSCs).

Yet, it seems that with forced upregulation of specific enzymes and substances within the dedifferentiated reactive astrocytes, we can make them become completely dedifferentiated. And then, once the astrocytes have transformed into clusters of NSCs, we can force upregulate over enzymes/substances within them that cause the NSCs to become either GABAminergic or glutaminergic neurons.

Did I understand the science correctly? Are we really this close to being able to make significant strides in healing brain damage/injury patients?

I mean, it seems like we just need to have a better understanding of how exactly these processes work, and at what point in time after an injury they need to be applied. Also, there's the transition from rats to humans, and the differences there need to be understood as well.

Note: I would post links to the articles, but as they were emailed to me in pdf form, I do not have the links. Nor am I aware of the legal ramifications of if I uploaded them here. But if someone familiar with glial cells could let me know if my understanding is correct?

Thanks!