Although microglial activation has been observed in cerebral regions with early and abundant extracellular Aβ deposits (Serrano-Pozo et al., 2013; Hamelin et al., 2016), our data clearly show that the microglial activation observed in the hippocampus of APP-based models undoubtedly differs both qualitative and quantitative from that observed in AD patients. Here, APP is linked to Alzheimer disease.