Lou Gehrig's Disease or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is a neurological disorder characterized by progressive degeneration of motor neuron cells in the spinal cord and brain, which ultimately results in paralysis and death. The disease takes its less-scientific name from Lou Gehrig, a baseball player with the New York Yankees in the late 1920s and 1930s, who was forced to retire in 1939 as a result of the loss of motor control caused by the disease.
In 1991, a team of researchers linked familial ALS to chromosome 21. Two years later, the SOD1 gene was identified as being associated with many cases of familial ALS. The enzyme coded for by SOD1 carries out a very important function in cells: it removes dangerous superoxide radicals by converting them into non-harmful substances. Defects in the action of this enzyme mean that the superoxide radicals attack cells from the inside, causing their death. Several different mutations in this enzyme all result in ALS, making the exact molecular cause of the disease difficult to ascertain.
Recent research has suggested that treatment with drugs called antioxidants may benefit ALS patients. However, since the molecular genetics of the disease are still unclear, a significant amount of research is still required to design other promising treatments for ALS.
In general, the RAN proteins are more abundant in the cell nucleus, but in patients with Lou Gehrig's disease, they begin to leak out into the cytoplasm, thereby resulting in abnormal concentration differences.
Anita Baron first noticed something was wrong in August 2018, when she began to drool. Her dentist chalked it up to a problem with her jaw.
The antiepileptic drug ezogabine reduced pathologic excitability of cortical and spinal motor neuron cells that are early signs of clinical dysfunction in people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), according to a study conducted by the Neurological Clinical Research Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital.
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute have created a drug that can lure stem cells to damaged tissue and improve treatment efficacy--a scientific first and major advance for the field of regenerative medicine.
Research on genetic heart disease has uncovered a new and unexpected mechanism for heart failure. This landmark discovery found a correlation between the clumping of RNA-binding proteins long linked to neurodegenerative disease and the aggregates of protein found in the heart tissue of patients with RBM20 dilated cardiomyopathy.
Mayo Clinic researchers, along with national and global collaborators, have developed a potential test for Machado-Joseph disease, or spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) ? a disease that has no cure.
An experimental medication that was recently shown to slow the progression of the neurodegenerative disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, has now demonstrated the potential to also prolong patient survival.
Scientists from the John A. Moran Eye Center at the University of Utah have achieved another first in the field of connectomics, which studies the synaptic connections between neurons.
The lack of protein TDP-43 in two neurodegenerative diseases is shown to prevent neuron growth via failed transport of RNA and subsequent absence of protein synthesis in axons
Failures in a quality control system that protects protein-building fidelity in cells can lead to motor neuron degeneration and related diseases, according to a new study from an international team co-directed by Scripps Research molecular biologist Claudio Joazeiro, PhD.
An investigational drug that targets an instigator of the TDP-43 protein, a well-known hallmark of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD), may reduce the protein's buildup and neurological decline associated with these disorders, suggests a pre-clinical study from researchers at Penn Medicine and Mayo Clinic.
An experimental medication slows the progression of the neurodegenerative disease called Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease, according to recently released results from a clinical trial run by investigators at the Sean M. Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital and Amylyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the company that manufactures the medication.
Scientists from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre at the University of Saskatchewan and Temple University have demonstrated that a Salmonella biofilm protein can cause autoimmune responses and arthritis in animals.
On the surface, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer's disease share two commonalities: Both are progressively debilitating neurodegenerative conditions--meaning symptoms get worse--and, at least for now, neither has an effective treatment, let alone a cure.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have identified how certain gene mutations cause amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, lose muscle control as nerve cells or neurons in the brain and spinal cord degenerate and can no longer send signals to muscles.
Biological robots, or biobots, draw inspiration from natural systems to mimic the motions of organisms, such as swimming or jumping.
A team of researchers led by scientists at the University of Toronto has delayed the onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice.
A joint research group in Japan has succeeded in reproducing key ALS symptoms in a small tropical fish by remote controlling a disease-associated protein molecule using light illumination.
The addition of dietary L-serine, a naturally occurring amino acid necessary for formation of proteins and nerve cells, delayed signs of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in an animal study.
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