Distinct inflammatory signaling pathways were ablated in the lateral cortex by microglial elimination. As above, mice were provided diets formulated with either vehicle or PLX5622 for 14 days. Next, mice were sham-injured (control) or were subjected to midline fluid percussion injury (TBI). At either 8 hpi or 7 dpi (14–21 days of Veh or PLX diet), the cortex was dissected, flash-frozen, and RNA was extracted. mRNA copy number of 262 genes was determined by NanoString nCounter mouse inflammation v2 panel plus. (a) Principle component analysis of control mice fed either vehicle or PLX5622. Ingenuity Pathway Analysis (IPA) was used to determine significantly altered (b) canonical pathways and (c) upstream regulators for differentially expressed genes in the PLX-CON versus Veh-CON comparison 7 dpi. Bars represent pathway z-score and (*) denotes p < .05. (d) mRNA counts for genes associated with microglia/macrophages from the cortex 7 dpi. Data are presented as mean copy number ± SEM. Means with (*) are significantly different from Veh-CON (p-adj < .05) and means with (#) are significantly different from Veh-TBI (p-adj < .05)