The brain’s resident immune cells, microglia break down toxins and pathogens and clear away dead or damaged tissue.
Brain Bytes showcase essential facts about neuroscience.
Design by Adrienne Tong.
Image by Wang et al. The Journal of Neuroscience, 2016.
AboutTheAuthor
Calli McMurray is the Media & Science Writing Associate at SfN. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience.
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BrainFacts/SfN
References
Soulet, D., & Rivest, S. (2008). Microglia. Current Biology, 18(12), R506-R508. https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(08)00533-2.pdf
Prinz, M., Jung, S., & Priller, J. (2019). Microglia Biology: One Century of Evolving Concepts. Cell, 179(2), 292–311. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2019.08.053
Chen, L., Deng, H., Cui, H., Fang, J., Zuo, Z., Deng, J., Li, Y., Wang, X., & Zhao, L. (2017). Inflammatory responses and inflammation-associated diseases in organs. Oncotarget, 9(6), 7204–7218. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.23208
