The enrichment of both autophagy- and phagocytosis-associated genes in the aged P-ERK1/2High microglia indicates a convergence of these pathways, which we have previously described after studying autophagy-associated phagocytosis in autoimmune neuroinflammation where we found myelin phagocytic function of CLEC7A-positive microglia to be necessary for recovery from experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE)75. Here, MAPK3 is linked to experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.