the physiological role of trpm2 is not well understood. it was shown to be involved in insulin secretion. in the immune cells it mediates parts of the responses to tnf-alpha. a role has been suggested for trpm2 in activation of nlrp3 inflammasome, the dysregulation of which is strongly associated with a number of auto inflammatory and metabolic diseases, such as gout, obesity and diabetes. in the brain it is involved in the toxicity of amyloid beta, a protein associated with alzheimer's disease.. in 2016, trpm2 channel was strongly implicated in the detection of non-painful warm stimuli. chun-hsiang tan and peter mcnaughton studied the responses of actual sensory neurons to thermal stimuli, then used an rna-sequencing strategy to identify trpm2 as genetically required for warmth detection in the non-noxious range of 33–38 °c.