CACNA1A and neurodegenerative disease: Previous research has described an increased expression of synaptic genes during the progression from normal aging to neurodegenerative disease [79, 80], including genes we observed to increase in older males on day 4 of sepsis (Cacnb1, Cacna1a, Ephb4, Glul, Jph3, Mink1, Nrxn2, Grasp).