A clinical study showed that pro-inflammatory cytokines including TNF-α, IL-6, and IL-1β were strongly associated with poor cognitive performance in T2DM (Piatkowska-Chmiel et al., 2021) and the elevated pro-inflammatory cytokines have been reported to directly destroy the brain-blood barrier and inhibit the synaptic activity, resulting in the neuronal damage and cognitive dysfunction (Zhao et al., 2019; Michailidis et al., 2022). The gene discussed is IL6; the disease is type 2 diabetes mellitus.