NG2-Glia Transiently Overcome Their Homeostatic Network and Contribute to Wound Closure After Brain Injury

In the adult brain, NG2-glia represent a cell population that responds to injury. To further investigate if, how and why are recruited injury site, we analyzed in detail long-term reaction of after lesion by time-lapse two-photon vivo microscopy. Live imaging over several weeks GFP-labeled stab wounded cerebral cortex revealed their fast heterogeneous reaction, including proliferation, migration, polarization, hypertrophy, or mixed response, while small subset cells remained unresponsive. At peak 2–4 days injury, accumulated around within core, overcoming homeostatic control density, which normalized back physiological conditions only 4 insult. Genetic ablation proliferating demonstrated this accumulation contributed beneficially wound closure. Thus, show response traumatic brain (TBI) participate tissue repair.