Astrocytic TLR4 at the crossroads of inflammation and seizure susceptibility.

Astrocytes have been implicated in epilepsy development, but their contribution is under debate. In this issue, Shen et al. (2016. J. Cell Biol. https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201605046) demonstrate that early postnatal inflammatory stimuli activate toll-like receptor 4 signaling in astrocytes and promote excitatory synaptogenesis, thereby increasing seizure susceptibility in young and adult mice.