Laboratory of NeuroGlia
Margaret Ho
Institute of neuroscience
NYCU, Taipei, Taiwan
Research Interest
Neuroglia, Neurodegenerative Diseases, Behavioral and Emotional Circuits
Our overall research objective is to understand the function of the brain cells “glia” under normal and pathological conditions. As the most abundant cell types in the nervous system, glia participate in virtually all aspects of brain function. Dysfunction in glial cells causes serious and significant pathology that leads to multiple brain diseases. The laboratory has made unique contribution to this field, including: 1) elucidated the mechanism of ubiquitination proteasome system (UPS) in regulating gliogenesis (PNAS 2009, Sci Rep 2017), neural stem cell differentiation (PNAS 2021), and synaptic pruning/neuronal remodeling (JGG 2017, Front Mol Neurosci 2021); 2) established an in-vivo fly Parkinson’s disease (PD) model for rapid screening of novel pathological regulators and new PD risk factors (Cell Rep 2017 and JOVE 2017); 3) identified a new factor in glial autophagy (PNAS 2023 and Autophagy 2023); 4) unraveled the mechanism of lysosome-related function under pathological conditions (Sci Adv 2020, Cell Res 2021, Traffic 2022, bioRxiv 2021).
The current research directions include:
-
Glia-mediated mechanisms in PD: how glial proteostasis and inflammation contributes to both motor and non-motor behaviors in PD.
-
Neurochemical basis of gliotransmission in behavior: explore the neurochemical mechanism of neuron-glia interaction, and investigate how they contribute to both learning and innate behaviors.
Last update: 2026/07/10