A novel role for microglia in minimizing excitotoxicity

doi:10.1186/1741-7007-10-7

BMC Biol. 2012; 10: 7.

Published online 2012 January 31. doi: 10.1186/1741-7007-10-7

PMCID: PMC3269391

A novel role for microglia in minimizing excitotoxicity

Mariko L Howe¹ and Ben A Barres¹

¹Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

Corresponding author.

Mariko L Howe: mlhowe/at/stanford.edu; Ben A Barres: barres/at/stanford.edu

Received January 27, 2012; Accepted January 31, 2012.

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Microglia are the abundant, resident myeloid cells of the central nervous system (CNS) that become rapidly activated in response to injury or inflammation. While most studies of microglia focus on this phenomenon, little is known about the function of 'resting' microglia, which possess fine, branching cellular processes. Biber and colleagues, in a recent paper in Journal of Neuroinflammation, report that ramified microglia can limit excitotoxicity, an important insight for understanding mechanisms that limit neuron death in CNS disease.

See research articlehttp://www.jneuroinflammation.com/content/9/1/27.

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