Your knowledge about axon regeneration is similar to mine when I started 2 months ago :)

There are several differences. The scar tissue (glial scar) is the first. We have axon repellents in the CNS that we have to overcome, to do that we have to look for dis inhibitory effects when gathering pathways, which is also part of our work. Typically this is done by playing cells on myelin for example.

Another problem we face is the growth comes of regenerating axons. Their dynamics in forming actin filaments differed in PNS vs CNS. This might be due to upstream signaling differences. Lack of specific proteins that are only expressed in PNS neurons.

This brings me to the third difference, the regenerative capacity of CNS neurons is "lost" during development. This is due to blockage of regenerative signaling pathways.

In the past 10 years a lot of studies have examined the pathways that change during development in neurons and got to some pathways that seems to play an import role like the PI3K->Akt->mTOR/GSK3 pathways which is the focus of our studies.

The optic nerve is interesting because it's part of the CNS and it's easy to examine. Through performing a crush right behind the eye (beginning of the optic nerve) and subsequent excision of the whole nerve and staining the axons we can assess how well the axons regenerated after specific treatments.

Funding is the main problem with psychedelic research. It is still a "taboo" subject and people still don't believe in those substances as medicine or good tools for research. Hopefully it will change with time...

Research is indeed a draining work, specially when things do not turn out as you wanted. On the other side, you keep learning. It never gets boring :)

I wish you the best of much with your plans. Applications sent yet?