Expression of VIVIT in hippocampal astrocytes, using adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors equipped with the human GFAP promoter Gfa2 (Lee et al., 2008), improved synaptic strength and/or normalized synaptic plasticity in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury (Furman et al., 2012, 2016; Sompol et al., 2017). Here, GFAP is linked to Alzheimer disease.