Spinal cord injury can be divided into primary and secondary injury. As an important process of spinal cord injury, secondary injury can be classified into acute phase, subacute phase and chronic phase according to the time and progression of the injury. Oxidative stress reaction, inflammatory reaction, tissue edema, scar formation and other pathological changes appear subsequently during the process. In the central nervous system, the astrocyte is one of the most widely distributed cell that has different shapes at different stages and plays a complex role such as anti-inflammatory or pro-inflammatory action and neuroprotective or anti-neurorestorative effect after spinal cord injury. The astrocyte has been a research focus in the field of spinal cord injury. The authors review the role and research progress of astrocyte in oxidative stress response, excitotoxicity, inflammatory response, tissue edema, scar formation, axonal regeneration and cell transformation in spinal cord injury based on the pathological changes of secondary injury, in order to provide new ideas to the related research of spinal cord injury.

Spinal cord injuries; Astrocytes; Neurons; Edema; Cell transdifferentiation