Lab Leader: Xiaoping Tong

Lab Name: Laboratory of Glial Cell Biology and the Roles of Glia in Brain Disorders

Lab Info：The research interests of the lab mainly foucs on: 1, Glial cells biological functions and the brain cognition; 2, Pathological mechanisms of glial cells in neurological and psychiatric diseases.

Glial cells constitute roughly half the volume of the central nervous system of mammals, and divide primarily into astrocytes, microglia, oligodendrocytes and NG2 glia in the brain. Glial cell mainly provide nutrition and tropic support to neurons as well as clear the metabolites and maintain the homeostasis of extracellular environment. Most importantly, glial cells actively interact with neurons either by release of a series of signaling molecules or forming synaptic connections to integrate into the neural circuits and impact on the brain functions. With the help of a variety of transgenic mice, advanced techniques and animal disease models, our research group aims to systematically investigate how glial cells integrate into the neural circuits and perform their functions under physiological and pathological conditions, which provides new perspective in the clinical diagnosis and treatment of brain diseases to help the acceleration of the transformation of basic medicine into clinical therapy.

Lab Members: