Interestingly, only the Aβ-plaque-independent microglial response was higher in females with AD (intercept: 0.51 ± 0.11) when compared to males with AD (− 0.25 ± 0.13; p < 0.001) whereas the Aβ-plaque associated microglial response was indifferent between sexes (slope females with AD: 0.15 ± 0.03 vs. males with AD: 0.13 ± 0.04; p = 0.94; Fig. 2B, D), controlled for age, BMI and TSPO gene SNP. Here, TSPO is linked to Alzheimer disease.