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Abstract
Recent advances in glial cell research have proven that glial cells are much more than brain “glue,” and that glia perform numerous important functions in vertebrate and invertebrate nervous systems. For example, glial cells are vital for maintaining brain health after injury and in disease conditions. In this dissertation, I present data collected during my time in the Logan lab where we have studied how glial cells act as immune responders in the Drosophila brain. I will discuss our current understanding of the glial cell immune response and then present my data revealing how the evolutionarily conserved trimeric Protein Phosphatase 4 (PP4) serine/threonine phosphatase complex is a novel member of the glial response to nerve injury in the adult Drosophila brain.