Abstract
Proliferation and differentiation of glial cells in mature and developing brains of rodents were investigated. Autoradiography, immuno- and enzymehistochemistry and computer graphic analysis were used in this study. The following results were obtained; In the white matter of the adult brains astroglia seem to proliferate in response to injuries, while the main proliferating glial cells in the gray matter, i.e. hippocampal gray matter, or in the facial nucleus, are microglia. Computer graphic analysis disclosed that total volume of microglial cell body in the nucleus suffered from retrograde degeneration increases up to five times of that in the normal nucleus. It was suggested that proliferating microglia transform into fibrous astroglia, and thus, they were supposed to play a significant role in the repair process of damaged brains. The results of autoradiographical studies on the developing brains indicated that immature glioblasts are directly formed from ependymoglioblasts, the progeny of the matrix cells. We could trace smooth morphological transition from glioblasts to astroglia or to microglia.
