If after-work drinks tend to leave you clinging with embarrassment¹ the next morning, help could be at hand.

工作之余的酒局让你第二天早晨很尴尬？还在为此烦恼吗？别担心，新研制的“千杯不醉”解酒药可以帮你摆脱烦恼。

Scientists are developing a ‘stay sober’ pill which may spare the blushes（脸红） of those who get drunk too easily, by limiting the effects of alcohol on their brains.

In a fascinating experiment, mice given the drug did not even get tipsy（喝醉的） , despite being fed enough alcohol to make them stumble and fall over.

The research paves the way for a tablet that stops people from making fools of themselves on a night out.

It could help explain why some drinkers are ‘cheap dates’ who start slurring² their words and losing their inhibitions after one glass of wine, while others can knock back glass after glass with few ill effects.

The American and Australian scientists who carried out the research focused on the way alcohol affects glial cells（胶质细胞） , which make up 90 per cent of the brain.

They play a crucial role in the immune system, helping³ to fight infections such as meningitis（脑膜炎） . In the experiment, shutting off this immune response produced a remarkable⁴ effect – it stopped the mice who were given alcohol from getting drunk the British Journal of Pharmacology reported.

Not only were the animals’ reflexes far better, they also found it much easier to balance and walk than animals whose brain immune cells were allowed to work normally, the British Journal of Pharmacology reports.

University of Adelaide researcher Mark Hutchinson said: ‘When a mouse gets drunk, it is quite similar to a human that’s drunk. It can’t work its motor co-ordination properly. If you stop these immune cells from working, the animals didn’t get drunk.’

The University College London researchers hope it will be on sale over the counter within three years.