Brain inflammation is typically involved in the pathogenesis of acute conditions such as stroke and brain trauma and in chronic neurodegenerative diseases, for instance, Alzheimer’s disease. Accordingly, a well-characterized in vivo model of brain inflammation can be a useful tool to evaluate specific drug effects focused on various inflammation targets in the pharmaceutical drug discovery process. A model of brain inflammation was induced by the injection of β-amyloid peptide (αβ) or the bacterial endotoxin lipopolysaccharide (LPS) into the lateral ventricles of CD-I mice. The time course and dose response kinetics of cytokine and chemokine production were characterized. Levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokines IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-6 and the chemokine MCP-1 were significantly increased with respect to both time and dose in the cortex and hippocampus as determined by ELISA. Immunohistochemical assays were developed to detect IL-1β to determine cellular localization of this cytokine to microglia and astrocytes. Astrocytes were labeled with antibodies to glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and microglia were labeled with F4/80 antibodies. IL-1β was localized to cell type in frozen sections using double immunofluorescence (IMF) tags and were visualized with traditional fluorescence and confocal imaging.