Microglia are immune cells of the central nervous system. Different types of microglia exist, yet we incompletely understand to what extend subtypes serve different functions. To test this, we used a selective genetic ablation strategy in mice. Intriguingly, loss of one microglia subset causes severe anxiety exclusively in females. Moreover, this behavior develops at the time of sexual maturity, suggesting an important role of female sex hormones in this anxiety model. Our findings suggest a mechanistic link between sex and genetics, two major risk factors for anxiety disorders in people.

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National Institute of Health grant R01MH093595

This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2019 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.