MAPT and tauopathy: Asai et al. (2015) have showed that microglia are able to spread tau pathology across the brain by microglial uptake and exosomal release of tau in a mouse model of tauopathy. In addition to synapse elimination and aggravation of tau pathology, activated microglia release proinflammatory mediators in response to extracellular protein aggregates and thereby causing harm to neurons (Heneka et al., 2013; Shi et al., 2017).