In the AD brain, the α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (α7nAChR) can be damaged with Aβ knots to form a complex that disrupts synaptic function (Ni et al., 2013) and using an antagonist of α7nAChR can actually inhibit the proliferation of microglia and reduce the expression of inflammatory factors IL-1β and TNF-α (Guan et al., 2015). Here, CHRNA7 is linked to Alzheimer disease.