Congrats to Heather Barber and colleagues from the Kucenas lab for their recent publication

“Radial astroglia cooperate with microglia to clear neuronal cell bodies during zebrafish optic tectum development.”

Cell Reports doi: 10.1016/j.celrep.2025.116509

Barber HM, Robbins CG, Cutler Z, Brown RI, Jung LE, Werkman I, & Kucenas S.  (2025)

Barber et al. show that radial astroglia help clear out dying neurons during normal brain development. They surround the dying cells in cup-like structures called scyllate heads and pass the cellular debris to microglia for final removal. When microglia are depleted, these scyllate heads remain for much longer, indicating that microglia are needed to finish the cleanup process.