Taken together, these findings emphasize the central role of MCs as primary instigators of inflammatory responses and suggest that, although direct evidence of NLRP3 inflammasome involvement in brain MC activation and function in neurodegenerative diseases, such as PD and AD is currently lacking, a potential role for CNS MCs in the pathogenesis of these diseases is reasonable to be hypothesized and further investigated. Here, NLRP3 is linked to Parkinson disease.