Increasing THIK-1 activity might enhance surveillance and neuroprotection (in disease or old age) or increase synaptic pruning during development (e.g., to reduce changes leading to autism; Zhan et al., 2014), while decreasing THIK-1 activity could be employed to reduce these microglial actions (e.g., to reduce microglial-mediated damage to bystander neurons in disease; Bialas et al., 2017). The gene discussed is KCNK13; the disease is autism.