Abstract: Multiple sclerosis (MS), which is characterized by inflammatory demyelination in the central nervous system (CNS), is the most common neurological disease in the young adult population. Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of MS, is often used in preclinical studies. Accumulating data indicate that in addition to immune cells such as T cells and dendritic cells, CNS resident microglia and astrocytes play important roles in demyelinating neuroinflammation (Healy et al., 2022). In particular, microglia are key immune-competent cells that can respond to environmental changes. Conditional depletion of transforming growth factor-β-activated kinase 1, a mitogen-associated protein kinase kinase kinase, in microglia is reported to reduce CNS inflammation and diminish axonal and myelin damage significantly. This suggests that elucidating the mechanisms of microglia-specific responses during pathologies may help in the development of treatments that reduce EAE/MS disease severity (Goldmann et al., 2013).