Patients with delirium after sepsis and other conditions showed higher IL-6 and IL-8 levels than cognitively healthy patients (Wu et al., 2020; De Rooij et al., 2007; Van Munster et al., 2008), indicating that cytokine-induced toxicity in the brain can worsen cognitive function in septic patients. Here, CXCL8 is linked to delirium.