Recruitment of leukocytes to the vascular wall constitutes a major trigger for vaso-occlusion in SCA and occurs in response to inflammatory stimuli such as TNF cytokine, cell-free heme (or hemin, a damage-associated molecular pattern), and ischemia/reperfusion processes (Turhan et al., 2002; Kalambur et al., 2004; Belcher et al., 2014). Here, TNF is linked to autosomal dominant cerebellar ataxia.