# Glial

Category: Metabolism

Glial means "glue-like," and glial cells are mostly spidery-shaped cells that used to be thought of as just connective, supportive cells in the brain.

8 passages · 1 author · 1976–2022 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/glial

## Synthesis

**Glial cells**, historically dismissed as mere "glue-like" connective tissue, are now understood as metabolically active regulators of brain structure and function. [Source 1, 3] Peat emphasized that these spidery-shaped cells are not passive support structures but are central to processes like **myelination** and steroid synthesis, with specific types such as **oligodendrocytes** being unusually sensitive to hormonal and environmental signals. [Source 1, 5] These cells possess receptors for stress and benzodiazepines, and when activated, they produce pregnenolone, a crucial neurosteroid. [Source 1, 5] Their fundamental role in forming the myelin sheath around nerve axons is directly dependent on *thyroid hormone*, which triggers them to wrap their sheet-like processes in thin layers around the conductive parts of nerve cells. [Source 1, 5]

The metabolic activity and differentiation of glial cells are profoundly influenced by dietary and energetic factors. Peat noted that the short-chain fatty acid **butyrate**, found in butter and coconut oil, specifically promotes the absorption of thyroid hormone by oligodendrocytes, thereby supporting the energy-intensive process of myelination. [Source 1, 5] This connection places glial function squarely within the context of oxidative metabolism, as the mitochondria within these cells produce energy in response to thyroid hormones. [Source 1] Conversely, a deficiency of vitamin A can trigger a pathological *de-differentiation* and overgrowth of glial cells, a process Peat suspected was analogous to the formation of plaques in conditions like Alzheimer's disease, where non-dividing neurons accumulate fibrous debris while glial cells divide rapidly. [Source 4]

Beyond their structural role, glial cells exhibit a unique sensitivity to physical forces and are implicated in memory and systemic adaptation. Peat cited research showing that glial cells, particularly those in the brain, are exceptionally sensitive to *magnetic fields*, enlarging under magnetic stimulation, a property they share with testicular tissue. [Source 6] This sensitivity points to a high degree of intracellular structure and a role in complex processes like memory, aligning with the view that every brain cell, including glia, contains a sensory primary cilium capable of detecting complex environmental patterns rather than simple on-off signals. [Source 6, 8] The purposeful, adaptive behavior of these cells challenges purely genetic-determinist models of cellular differentiation, as glial function and form are continuously shaped by the needs of the organism's functional systems. [Source 3, 8]

Therapeutic interventions that support oxidative metabolism can rapidly alter glial cell activity to resolve pathological states. In a striking demonstration, Peat described how enclosing an acutely injured, swollen hand in a bag of pure **carbon dioxide** restored its normal appearance within minutes, an effect consistent with the observation that increasing carbon dioxide creates a "tremendous change in the glial cell activity" that accelerates recovery from brain damage. [Source 2] This protective effect is part of a broader physiological framework where substances like progesterone, pregnenolone, and saturated fatty acids protect against the catabolic, degenerative processes that drive glial overgrowth and tissue fibrosis, counteracting the *hyperviscosity* and energy deprivation that contribute to dementia and other degenerative conditions. [Source 4, 7]

## People also ask

### How does thyroid hormone affect glial cells?

Peat argued that thyroid hormone directly triggers oligodendrocytes to wrap their sheet-like processes around nerve axons, forming the myelin sheath, and that butyrate from butter or coconut oil promotes thyroid hormone absorption by these cells to support this energy-intensive process.

### What happens to glial cells during vitamin A deficiency?

The corpus describes that a lack of vitamin A can cause pathological de-differentiation and rapid overgrowth of glial cells, a process Peat suspected was analogous to plaque formation in Alzheimer's disease.

### Why did Peat recommend carbon dioxide for brain injury?

Peat described that increasing carbon dioxide creates a tremendous change in glial cell activity that accelerates recovery from brain damage, consistent with an observation where a CO₂ bag rapidly restored an injured, swollen hand to normal.

## Related concepts

- [Carbon Dioxide (CO2)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/carbon-dioxide-co2/index.md)
- [Cytochrome P450scc.](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cytochrome-p450scc/index.md)
- [Myelination](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/myelination/index.md)
- [Oligodendrocytes](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/oligodendrocytes/index.md)
- [Thymus Gland](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/thymus-gland/index.md)
- [Acidosis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/acidosis/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Multiple Sclerosis and Other Hormone-Related Brain Syndromes

Ray Peat · Article · 2013 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/multiple-sclerosis-hormone-related-brain-syndromes.shtml

> 2. Cytochrome P450scc. The cytochromes are \"pigments,\" in the same sense that they contain the colored \"heme\" group that gives hemoglobin its color. P450 means \"protein that absorbs light at a wavelength of 450. The scc means \"side-chain cleaving,\" which refers to the removal of the 6 carbon atoms that distinguish cholesterol from pregnenolone. Other Cyt P450 enzymes are important for their detoxifying oxidizing action, and some of these are involved in brain metabolism.
> 3. Glial means \"glue-like,\" and glial cells are mostly spidery-shaped cells that used to be thought of as just connective, supportive cells in the brain.
> 4. Mitochondria (the \"thread-like bodies\") are the structures in cells which produce most of our metabolic energy by respiration, in response to the thyroid hormones.
> 5. Mucoid--refers to a mucoprotein, a protein which contains some carbohydrate. A glycoprotein; usually not intended as a precise term.
> 6. Myelination. Myelin is a multilayered enclosure of the axons (the long processes) of nerve cells, composed of proteins and complex lipids, including cholesterol. The layered material is a flat, thin extension of the cytoplasm of the oligodendroglial cells.
> 7. Oligodendrocytes are one of the kinds of glial (or neuroglial) cells, and structurally they are unusual in having sheet-like, rather than just thread-like processes; they have a sensitivity (\"receptors\") to stress and valium, and produce pregnenolone when activated. Under the influence of thyroid hormone, they wrap themselves in thin layers around the conductive parts of nerve cells, leaving a multilayered \"myelin\" coating. Their absorption of thyroid hormone is promoted by butyrate, an anti-stress substance found in butter and coconut oil.
> 8. Steroidogenesis is the creation of steroids, usually referring to the conversion of cholesterol to hormones.

### Source 2 — Ray Peat and Bud Weiss - The Biology of Carbon Dioxide - 2010

Ray Peat · Interview · Sep 18, 2022 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tgKX-DkEm4

> **Bud Weiss:** Yeah, there's a group in the Institute for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia. Glenn Dolman masks these kids who are brain damaged, and it creates a tremendous change in the glial cell activity, and they're really recovering much more rapidly just masking the kids. He masks himself, too, so you keep his memory. Oh, there was another animal. I didn't mention the bat.
>
> **Ray Peat:** Oh, yeah. Bats like to live in caves and have a fairly high carbon dioxide environment. And they, physiologically, have a very intense metabolic rate. So they're producing it. Even when they're hanging in their cave, they're still adjusted to this high tissue and serum level of carbon dioxide. And people have banded them over the years. And someone found a banded dead bat that had been, they didn't know how old it was when they put the band on, but it was banded 42 years previously.
>
> **Bud Weiss:** It has a physiology of basically a mouse that lives about two to three years in muscle. Yeah. Bats don't have arthritis.
>
> **Question:** Bats don't have arthritis.
>
> **Ray Peat:** I didn't know that, but once I was carrying a big tank of carbon dioxide and I was aware that the valve apparatus, if it happened to break, it would be like I was holding a rocket. So I tripped on the steps. And as I fell, I knew I didn't want to drop that thing and then knock off the valve. So I went down with it and landed on top of my hands with my body and the tank. My hand immediately started swelling and turning blue. And I immediately got a plastic bag and put my hand in a bag of pure CO2. And in 15 or 20 minutes, it looked like a fresh hand, except for some scraped up pieces of skin. And I told that experience to some friends who had arthritis of the knees. they put their legs in a bag of pure CO2 and leave the arthritis just in an hour or two. Patrick? I have a question as regards the administration of CO2 in infants you mentioned earlier.

### Source 3 — Intention, Learning, and Health

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2021

> The animal survived, and the cilia in that area always beat in the wrong direction for the rest of its life. When it divided, the daughter cells, and all the following descendants had the same patch of reversed cilia. It was obvious that the “body plan” of the paramecium isn’t under the control of the genes.
>
> When research in a wide range of animals, and humans, began making it impossible to deny that environmental conditions can cause transgenerational effects, the reality of “epigenetics” was accepted by mainstream biologists as a non-Mendelian form of inheritance, but they detoxified and denatured it, by finding mechanisms that could account for it, but only in a very limited and temporary way, that didn’t have any influence at all on their basic doctrine, that the “germ line” is ultimately impenetrable by adaptive changes in response to new environmental situations. The changes they accept do nothing more than influence which of the inherited eternal DNA genes will be expressed for a while, allowing the original, species-defining traits to be restored when the suppressive effects are removed. For them, “epigenetics” refers to a change in the state of cellular differentiation that persists through cell division; an early source of the word was Waddington’s use of “epigenesis” to refer to the changes of gene expression that produce stable changes in cell differentiation during the process of development of the organism.
>
> The belief in genetic determinism has had a strong influence on the understanding of an organism’s adaptation to its environment. The differentiated state of the cells in our body is usually considered to be terminal, and occurs when an undifferentiated precursor or stem cell receives specific influences that cause a particular pattern of gene expression, which then persists in non-dividing cells. During the development from stem and precursor cells, the “epigenetic” factors, DNA methylation, histone acetylation, formation of micro-RNA, etc., stabilize the differentiated state of the cell.
>
> This view of cellular differentiation is convenient for the medical doctrine of incurable diseases—the state of differentiation follows an orderly plan, and that plan changes only by changing something in the cell’s nucleus. When tumor cells are formed, it’s because something has randomly interfered with the plan, disrupting the genes, in a manner that can only get worse.

### Source 4 — Townsend Letter — August / September 1992

Ray Peat · Article · 1992 · with Richard L. Farr, Ray Peat

> **Ray Peat:** I suspect that the plaques in Alzheimer's disease are the brain's equivalent to the plaques of leucoplakia, or of dandruff, and that the overgrowth of the glial cells is the result of the same tendency of cells to divide rapidly, while the non-dividing neurons accumulate an excess of fibrous proteins that can’t be degraded. In degenerative diseases, the stress- and age-induced accumulation of iron and other mitochondria-toxic material (e.g., calcium, aluminum, and lipid peroxidation products including age pigment) and the failure of detoxifying systems make therapy with ordinary nutritional supplements fairly ineffective. Direct supplementation of the various natural protective substances (or their analogues) in addition to the protective vitamins (especially E) and minerals (especially magnesium) is more appropriate. The supplementation of pregnenolone, etc., will allow dietary vitamin A to be spared for other purposes, including regulation of mitosis, differentiation, and oxidation. GABA-related metabolites, such as GHB, butyric acid, succinic acid, and the butyrobetaines, have multiple protective functions, including promotion of respiration and pregnenolone synthesis, regulating gene expression, and reducing damage from glucocorticoids. DHEA seems to be involved in various regenerative processes, and a deficiency of it is prognostic of increased probability of death from various causes, including cancer, heart disease, and AIDS. Progesterone has the special status of being an essential nerve growth factor, and generally blocks the catabolic actions of the glucocorticoids and estrogen, thereby protecting all tissues, from brain cells to white blood cells. Thyroid hormone protects against stress and supports normal differentiation. Short and medium-chain saturated fatty acids provide a safe source of energy, as well as having hormone-like and adaptogenic effects. The short-chain saturated fatty acids are important in regulating bowel flora.

### Source 5 — Glossary

Ray Peat · Glossary

> Oligodendrocytes
>
> Oligodendrocytes are one of the kinds of glial (or neuroglial) cells, and structurally they are unusual in having sheet-like, rather than just thread-like processes; they have a sensitivity ("receptors") to stress and valium, and produce pregnenolone when activated. Under the influence of thyroid hormone, they wrap themselves in thin layers around the conductive parts of nerve cells, leaving a multilayered "myelin" coating. Their absorption of thyroid hormone is promoted by butyrate, an anti-stress substance found in butter and coconut oil.

### Source 6 — Mind and Tissue: Russian Research Perspectives on the Human Brain

Ray Peat · Book · 1976

> **Ray Peat:** In animals, the most obvious trend in evolution is that of "cephalization," the increasing centralization of nervous processes in the head, and the growing complexity and size of the brain. At the same time this anatomical centralization occurs, there is also a metabolic tendency toward a higher efficiency of energy production. This change of efficiency apparently represents an increase of structure in the cell, and structure in general corresponds to the electrical potential of the cell. It has been known since the end of the last century that a magnet will delay a nerve's response to an electrical stimulus, as if its structure had been preserved momentarily. If we think of the magnetic field as stabilizing the "head state," it occurs to us that the earth's magnetic field must have been an important factor in evolution, supporting or promoting "cephalization." Yuri Kholodov has found that higher organisms tend to be more sensitive to magnetism than lower ones, and that he most sensitive tissue is nervous tissue, especially the brain and the glial cells, which are thought to be involved particularly in memory processes, and to provide some kind of metabolic support for the neurons. He found that the glial cells enlarge under the influence of magnetic stimulation. Recently, another magnetobiologist has found that the testes are also exceptionally sensitive to magnetism. Ordinarily, we don't think of testicular tissue as being uniquely "structured" in the sense that nerve and muscle are. However, in higher animals the testicles are carried in a scrotum, which keeps them slightly cooler than the rest of the body. At normal body temperature, the testes are unable to function properly; neither hormonal nor sperm-forming processes are normal at the higher temperature. Besides slowing the rate of chemical reactions slightly, this small amount of cooling would tend to increase the structuring of cell water.

### Source 7 — Bleeding, Clotting, Cancer

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2006

> A.L. Copley, who pioneered the study of hemorheology, called this the “endoendothelial layer.” This layer probably contains albumin, too, in close association with the (carbohydrate) “glycocalyx” of the endothelial cell surface. Disturbances that accelerate the formation and dissolution of the fibrin layer can be detected by an increase in the concentration of the fibrin degradation products (FDP, or D-dimers) in the blood, even before any symptoms have appeared.
>
> Although Selye described shock as the first (potentially lethal) phase of stress, usually followed by the corrective adaptive processes, it's useful to think of aging in terms of a lingering partial state of shock, in which adaptation is less than perfect.
>
> The loss of blood volume through leaky capillaries tends to be self-aggravating. The concentrated and viscous blood doesn't flow as well through the capillaries, and this energy deprivation leads to increased leakiness of the cells, and to swelling of the endothelial cells, decreasing the internal diameter of the small blood vessels. The energy-deprived state increases lactic acid, adrenaline, and free fatty acids, all of which contribute to increased leakiness and impaired circulation.
>
> In the bowel, the capillary malfunction increases the absorption of endotoxin, which intensifies the systemic energy problem. (Polyunsaturated oils, especially fish oil, damage the bowel capillaries, allowing more endotoxin to be absorbed.)
>
> In the uterus, increased viscosity of the blood impairs the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the fetus, retarding its development. Dilution of the blood under the influence of progesterone reduces the hematocrit, helping to compensate for the viscosity; in toxemic pregnancies this isn't sufficient to maintain normal viscosity and perfusion.
>
> In the brain, hyperviscosity contributes to dementia. In the lung, to edema and reduced oxygenation (“shock lung,” “wet lung,” respiratory distress; this lung edema is a major cause of mortality in pregnancy). In the pancreas, to inflammation, and to the release of proteolytic enzymes, impairing the clotting system even more.
>
> During the development of cancer, hyperviscosity (and the associated hypoxia) contributes to the tumor's deranged metabolism, tending to increase its production of ammonia, clotting factors, and other stress-inducing toxins.

### Source 8 — Intention, Learning, and Health

Ray Peat · Newsletter · 2021

> If a single-celled organism can “mentally model,” or imagine, itself in a world, why should we imagine that our nerve cells can’t deal with anything more complex than “on-off” information?
>
> Every cell in the body, except blood cells and cancer cells, contains a “primary cilium,” which has an internal structure similar to the cilia that are used for propulsion, except that it lacks the parts needed for movement. These cilia are the cells’ sense organelles; they have different specializations—they can detect the movement of fluids, pressure, sounds, odors, and light. Every brain cell contains one of these sensory organelles. In the hippocampus, the primary cilia are involved in contextual memory (Rhee, et al., 2016). They also allow cells to align their polarity according to their position in the body. If the olfactory cell can, as Luca Turin describes, identify the complex vibratory patterns of chemicals, why would other nerves be unable to recognize and transmit the same information to other parts of the brain? In the eyes and auditory nerves, why would the specific qualities sensed by the primary cilia have to be reduced to on-off signals for transmission?
>
> If the signals transmitted by nerve axons are complex, then the issue of “distributed” knowledge is explained—each part is aware of its place in a Gestalt, in the Action Acceptor, allowing it to align its functions with the purposeful future-oriented activity of the organism. In the case of muscle cells, endocrine cells, cytokine producing cells, etc., this alignment is what the Functional Systems consist of. Cell dissolution and cell multiplication, as well as re-differentiation, are elicited by the needs of functional system. The form, function, and being of the organism are governed by the Functional Systems, in a continuously adapting process.
>
> In the 1950s, when most psychologists believed that only vertebrates were capable of learning, James McConnell demonstrated that flatworms, planaria, could be trained to change their behavior. These worms are able to regenerate a whole body, including the brain, from any part of the organism. McConnell found that worms regenerated from a part, such as the tail, of a trained worm retained the knowledge that had been acquired by that worm. He also found that when trained worms were ground up and fed to untrained worms, those worms learned the behavior more easily.

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