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

Scientists are developing a ‘stay sober’ pill which may spare the blushes 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, 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 slurring 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, which make up 90 per cent of the brain.

They play a crucial role in the immune system, helping to fight infections such as meningitis. In the experiment, shutting off this immune response produced a remarkable 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.

(Read by Lee Hannon. Lee Hannon is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)