The phosphorylated activation of PERK and eIF2α in the unfolded protein response pathway is also upregulated in reactive astrocytes during CNS prion disease (Smith et al., 2020), and the onset of this activation was similarly accelerated in the brains of microglia‐deficient prion‐infected Csf1rΔFIRE mice. Here, EIF2A is linked to prion disease.