Gliosis

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. An adaptive response characterized by the increase of supportive glial cells in the nervous system, typically following injury or degeneration
2. This is a phenomenon where scar tissue develops in neural tissues through the proliferation of glial cells reacting to damage
3. A process involving the proliferation and activation of glial cells in the central nervous system as a response to injury or disease

Etymology: "Glia" is itself a Greek word, meaning "glue," and it was chosen for the nervous system's supporting cells because they seemed to hold the neurons together. The term was coined by the German pathologist Rudolf Virchow in the 1850s, when he described this tissue as a kind of connective "nervous glue." Glia came into English through modern scientific Latin, drawing on the classical Greek root rather than any everyday use of the word. "Gliosis" is a straightforward scientific formation: it adds the suffix "-osis," a Greek-derived ending used in medicine for an abnormal or diseased condition, to "glia." The result names a state in which the supporting cells multiply, usually after the nervous system has been damaged. The word therefore describes glue cells gathering in response to injury, an image that the Greek root and the suffix together make transparent.