It is the centenary of the discovery of oligodendrocytes and we are increasingly aware of their importance in the functioning of the brain in development, adult learning, normal ageing and in disease across the life course, even in those diseases classically thought of as neuronal. This has sparked more interest in oligodendroglia for potential therapeutics for many neurodegenerative/neurodevelopmental diseases due to their more tractable nature as a renewable cell in the central nervous system. However, oligodendroglia are not all the same. Even from the first description, differences in morphology were described between the cells. With advancing techniques to describe these differences in human tissue, the complexity of oligodendroglia is being discovered, indicating apparent functional differences which may be of critical importance in determining vulnerability and response to disease, and targeting of potential therapeutics. It is timely to review the progress we have made in discovering and understanding oligodendroglial heterogeneity in health and neuropathology.

今年是少突胶质细胞发现一百周年，我们越来越意识到它们在大脑发育、成人学习、正常衰老和整个生命过程中的疾病中的重要性，甚至在那些传统上被认为是神经元的疾病中也是如此。由于少突胶质细胞作为中枢神经系统中的可再生细胞更容易处理，这引发了人们对少突胶质细胞作为许多神经退行性/神经发育疾病的潜在治疗方法的更多兴趣。然而，少突胶质细胞并不完全相同。即使从第一次描述开始，细胞之间的形态差异也被描述出来。随着描述人体组织中这些差异的技术不断进步，少突胶质细胞的复杂性逐渐被发现，表明明显的功能差异，这对于确定疾病的脆弱性和反应以及潜在治疗的目标可能至关重要。现在是时候回顾我们在发现和理解健康和神经病理学中少突胶质细胞异质性方面所取得的进展了。