At the risk of some inside baseball: there is growing evidence that "glial scar" encapsulation (and microglial activation generally) is not main the cause of ne

At the risk of some inside baseball: there is growing evidence that "glial scar" encapsulation (and microglial activation generally) is not main the cause of neural interface failure. Rather, oxidative stress [1] or other neurotoxic factors [2, 3] released by microvascular damage / blood-brain-barrier disruption seem to be the most correlated with interface failure. What then to make of the widely observed phenomenon that passing small DC currents through electrodes can temporarily rejuvenate them? It could be that this effect is a result of an electrochemical change to the electrode surface itself, rather than to the surrounding tissue. 1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24550823 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24550823 2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23562053 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23562053 3. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23891081 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23891081