This is some pretty amazing stuff, all right. I think I might have the Medical News Today report of this that is no longer available - but it won't have any pics. I'll check and if it has some other info, I will post it.

Scientists get real excited about this kind of thing. Usually, they are stuck with a static snapshot. Thus, a lab report or a high-magnification tissue slice or whatever just provides info about one single instance in time.

Since biology is all about processes, which are just sequences of events over time, it is fantastic when a new techniques allows for "seeing," in one form or another, the whole sequence.

Oligodendrocytes are one type of neuroglia, commonly called glia. Glia are the predominant type of cell in our nervous system, estimated at about 10-1. The glia have a number of different functions are usually subdivided into about 5 different subtypes (there are different ways to categorize glia). In general, glia do such things as regulating the internal environment of nervous system by providing nutrition and maintaining appropriate fluid balance.

They are also intimately involved with the development of neurons and control growth of axons and dendrites, which are neuronal cell body projections. They also provide the immune function of the nervous system through macroglia (specialized type of macrophages). And they are also involved with the synapse (the tiny gap between neurons that facilitates the transmission of the electrochemical impulse from one neuron to another).

Oligodendrocytes (or oligodendroglia, which was the common name used way, way back when I first learned about this - too far back to even think about it, afraid to say) are one subtype of glia. Their purpose is to myelinate the neurons in the CNS. Schwann Cells do the myelination of neurons in the PNS.

It is believed that Schwann Cells perform their task by wrapping myelin around one segment of one peripheral neuron at a time. However, it is believed, and now even more so as the result of this research, that oligodendrocytes wrap around segments of multiple neurons at the same time. It has been a big puzzle as to how this is accomplished.

Thus, this great piece of research not only provides a new method for studying myelination, it also provides some great evidence and clues as to how the process is accomplished. I love the analogy to the soldiers on the field aligning themselves. It makes me want to believe that they have a little mind of their own, however limited.

Oh - the OPC's. You can think of them as stem cells. Thus, they divide to keep producing more OPC's and a daughter cell, which is the oligodendrocyte.

Sorry if this is more confusing yet - and I am sure this much more than most of you wanted to hear or know My neurons made me do it.

rfinney