Topic summary
Gliotransmission
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Gliotransmitter.
Cell-to-cell communication
Gliotransmission can also occur between two types of glial cells: astrocytes and microglia. Calcium waves within the intracellular matrix of the astrocyte can cause a response in microglia with the presence of ATP in the extracellular matrix. One study demonstrated that a mechanical stimulation caused astrocytes to release ATP, which in turn caused a delayed calcium response in microglia, suggesting that astrocyte-to-microglia communication could be mediated by ATP.