STAT1 and Mental deterioration: Since there is now evidence that systemic poly I:C and type I IFN responses can affect progression of neurodegenerative pathology (Field et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2004; Khorooshi et al., 2013) and cognitive decline in aging (Baruch et al., 2014), and STAT1 is an important regulator of microglial phenotype (Lawrence and Natoli, 2011) it is also pertinent to investigate the microglial phenotype of IFNAR1−/− mice in models of microglial activation and chronic neurodegeneration.