Microglial activation and increased proinflammatory cytokine production are the hallmarks of JEV infection [24] . To see whether MO treatment helps in vitiation of these effects, immunostaining for microglial specific marker Iba-1 was performed in brain sections of all treatment groups. In brain sections of JEV and JEV+SC-MO groups the number of activated microglia with characteristic morphology, appeared to be more frequent when compared to sections belonging to Sham, JEV+39 MO and JEV+59 MO groups ( Figure 4B ). CBA performed to check the proinflammatory cytokines levels in the brain homogenates obtained from different treatments showed that levels of MCP-1, IFN-c, TNF-a, and IL-6 were found to be significantly increased in both JEV and JEV+SC-MO groups when compared to Sham infected groups (p,0.01). The elevated levels of these proinflammatory cytokines were drastically reduced with 39 and 59 MO treatments (p,0.01) ( Figure 4C -F).