*3.2. Chronic Administration of Curcumin Attenuates Ethanol-Induced Astrocytes and Microglia Activation in Ethanol-Treated Mouse Brains and In-Vitro Microglial Cells*

Previous literature has shown that there is activated microglia and astrocytes with ethanol intoxication [4], which may promote neurological disorders such as AD and dementia [38]. TLR4, a receptor for innate immune response, has been shown to be upregulated with ethanol; another receptor is RAGE, which has been shown to be playing a similar role in the inflammatory signaling. Our findings demonstrate that there was a significant reduction in the activation of both of the receptors in the curcumin-treated group. The Glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and ionized calcium-binding adaptor 1 (Iba-1) are assigned markers for the activities of astrocytes and microglia, respectively [28]. According to our Western blot and confocal microscopic results, there was an increased expression of GFAP and Iba-1 in the ethanol-treated mice brains, which was significantly rescued with the administration of curcumin (Figure 2). Furthermore, the in vitro findings also showed an enhanced expression of TLR4 and Iba-1 in the ethanol treated BV-2 microglial cells, which were significantly reduced in the curcumin and TAK242 (a specific inhibitor of TLR4) treated cells.
