Jose P. López-Atalaya Martínez

Jose Pascual López-Atalaya Martínez is a Tenured Scientist (Científico Titular) of the CSIC and leader of the Cellular plasticity and neuropathology group at the Instituto de Neurociencias (IN, CSIC-UMH), within the scientific programme "Cell plasticity in brain disease and repair".

The goal of our lab is to understand how brain’s innate immune cells integrate within neural circuits to influence brain function in health and disease. The questions we pursue are grounded in understanding the interplay between brain physiology and the brain’s innate immune system, as a central axis controlling homeostasis and disease. Our research is focused in two lines: (1) Understanding integrated brain circuits: we aim to elucidate the roles of neuron-microglia interactions at multiple levels, from synapses to neural circuits, in the control of brain function in health and disease. (2) Investigating cellular plasticity of immune cells of the brain: the ability of innate immune cells of the brain to adopt alternative fates when exposed to different conditions is now emerging as an important process in normal physiology and in disease conditions, such as aging and neurodegenerative diseases. We seek to understand how microglia cells interpret cues from their tissue microenvironment to adopt specialized roles. We have particular interest in unveiling the molecular mechanisms regulating the transitions and maintenance of distinct phenotypic and functional states of brain’s innate immune cells. (Description curated from publicly available data.)