IL6 and brain injury: Furthermore, activation of A2B receptor on murine astrocytes during glutamate-induced neuronal stress (Moidunny et al., 2012), as well as in an in vivo model of cortical brain injury (Banner et al., 1997) and after cerebral ischemia in the rat (Suzuki et al., 2000), is responsible for increased production of leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF), a member of the IL-6 family.