A research team has found that specific immune cells can connect with muscle fibres in a lightning-fast, neuron-like way to promote healing. These cells deliver quick pulses of calcium, triggering repair within seconds. The mechanism works in both injury and disease models. The discovery could inspire new treatments for muscle recovery and degeneration.
At the cellular scale, the way muscle tissue repairs itself becomes surprisingly complex. The body does not respond the same way to all forms of damage. A sudden muscle tear from a sports injury differs greatly from the slow decline in muscle strength seen in conditions such as muscular dystrophy.
A research team at Cincinnati Children’s has uncovered a shared and unexpected repair process that may help the body recover from several kinds of muscle damage. The findings were published online on November 21, 2025, in Current Biology.
The project was led by first author Gyanesh Tripathi, PhD, and corresponding author Michael Jankowski, PhD, who oversees the Research Division in Cincinnati Children’s Department of Anesthesia and serves as Associate Director of Basic Science Research for the Pediatric Pain Research Centre.
The newly identified mechanism involves macrophages, a type of immune cell. These cells are usually known for acting like tiny cleanup crews that remove bacteria, dead cells, and other unwanted material.
A Neuron-Like Repair Signal
“The biggest surprise about this was finding that a macrophage has a synaptic-like property that delivers an ion to a muscle fiber to facilitate its repair after an injury,” Jankowski says. “It’s literally like the way a neuron works, and it’s working in an extremely fast synaptic-like fashion to regulate repair,” added Jankowski. Scientists have long known that macrophages respond to muscle injury by releasing cytokines and chemokines that create inflammation, influence pain, and help drive the growth and regeneration of muscle fibres. Source: ANI
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