MAPK8 and brain injury: Traumatic brain injury in rats significantly upregulated the local expression levels of NF-κB, MAPKs (ERK, JNK, and p38), and other signaling molecules implicated in the neuroinflammatory response of rats following TBI (Chu et al., 2013; Kim et al., 2015; Marshall et al., 2017; Yang et al., 2017).