Although the accumulating literature has reported that HMGB1 is closely related to cognitive dysfunction caused by a variety of reasons, such as neurodegenerative diseases (Hei et al., 2018; Okuma et al., 2019), surgery (Kong et al., 2017), and sepsis (Chavan et al., 2012), the association between p-tau and HMGB1 in a delayed period post injury remains undefined. Here, MAPT is linked to neurodegenerative disease.