In the developing mammalian central nervous system astrocytes have been proposed as an
important substrate for axon growth. In the adult central nervous system following injury,
astrocytes are a major component of the gliotic response which has been proposed to block
axon growth. Experimental transplantation studies using cultured astrocytes have suggested
that immature but not mature cultured astrocytes have the capacity to support axon
outgrowth when transplanted into the adult rodent CNS. These observations suggest that …