In addition to its roles in aging, we and others have shown that expression of VGLUT2 and dVGLUT play key roles in DA neuron resilience in response to insults, including in mammalian PD models and in clinical PD (Steinkellner et al. 2022; Shen et al. 2018; Buck et al. 2021a, 2022, 2021b). This evidence concerns the gene SLC17A6 and Parkinson disease.