Harmful brain inflammation triggered by a subset of immune cells can be quelled by the action of a hormone on an oestrogen receptor. Microglia are immune cells that trigger inflammation in the central nervous system and carry an oestrogen receptor called ERβ. Christopher Glass and Kaoru Saijo at the University of California, San Diego, and their team screened a panel of molecules that bind to ERβ for their ability to block inflammation in microglia.
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