MAPT and Alzheimer disease: Ittner et al. (2016) found that phosphorylation of tau at Thr205 by p38γ inhibits the neurotoxic effects of Aβ in the early stages of the disease. Arne Ittner crossed p38γ –/– mice with AD model APP23 mice and found that loss of p38γ increased excitotoxicity, memory deficits, and premature death in APP23 mice (Ittner et al., 2016). In AD patients and APP23 mice, the authors found that p38γ levels decreased significantly, and compared to controls, p38γ-expressing neurons demonstrated a considerable increase in resistance to Aβ-induced cell death (Ittner et al., 2016).