Published by BioMed Central. ISSN: 1742-2094.

Journal of Neuroinflammation is an Open Access, peer-reviewed online journal that focuses on innate immunological responses of the central nervous system, involving microglia, astrocytes, cytokines, chemokines, and related molecular processes. 'Neuroinflammation' is an encapsulization of the idea that microglial and astrocytic responses and actions in the central nervous system have a fundamentally inflammation-like character, and that these responses are central to the pathogenesis and progression of a wide variety of neurological disorders. This idea has revolutionized our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, where it originated, and now has applications to other neurodegenerative diseases, to ischemic/toxic diseases, and even to normal brain development. Neuroinflammation incorporates a wide spectrum of complex cellular responses that include microglia and astrocytes, cytokines and chemokines, complement proteins, acute phase proteins, oxidative injury, and related molecular processes. Neuroinflammation is a new and rapidly expanding field that has revolutionized our understanding of chronic neurological diseases. This field has grown to encompass researchers with backgrounds in many diverse fields, including pathology, biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, clinical medicine, and epidemiology. Important contributions to this field have come from work with populations, with patients, with postmortem tissues, with animal models, and with in vitro systems. The Journal of Neuroinflammation will bring together work focusing on common pathogenic processes, and provide a forum for integrative reviews and commentaries on this field.