{"id":247176,"date":"2026-11-12T11:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-12T17:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/alcohol-and-the-brain-interact-through-immune-cells"},"modified":"2026-11-12T11:13:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T17:13:18","slug":"alcohol-and-the-brain-interact-through-immune-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/11\/alcohol-and-the-brain-interact-through-immune-cells","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol and the brain interact through immune cells"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A research team studying alcohol and the brain discovered a new way that alcohol abuse can cause brain dysfunction and damage: through immune cells called microglia. The research also identified a potential new treatment target.<\/p>\n<p>The team showed that in a brain affected by alcohol, microglia tear down the extracellular matrix (ECM), the scaffold that surrounds our neurons. The ECM physically holds our brain cells together and allows them to work properly. When it\u2019s disrupted, our neurons can\u2019t communicate as effectively. Severe ECM disruption can affect our ability to move, think and even remain alert.<\/p>\n<p>The research, published in <i>Immunity<\/i>, is new, fundamental knowledge that already guides the research team to explore new ways to prevent alcohol-related brain damage, says senior author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A research team studying alcohol and the brain discovered a new way that alcohol abuse can cause brain dysfunction and damage: through immune cells called microglia. The research also identified a potential new treatment target. The team showed that in a brain affected by alcohol, microglia tear down the extracellular matrix (ECM), the scaffold that [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}