Motor Neurons News and Research

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Nervous system plays a role in age-related weakness

Aging is an inevitable and a normal process of life. As people grow older, they lose muscle mass caused by age-related sarcopenia. In older adults, the maintenance of muscle mass and strength contribute to mobility which impacts quality of life. One of the reasons why older adults become frail is because of age-related muscle weakness.

10 Oct 2019

Newly discovered molecular process could speed up recovery from nerve injuries

Twenty million Americans suffer from peripheral nerve injuries, which can be caused by traumas such as combat wounds and motorcycle crashes as well as medical disorders including diabetes.

3 Oct 2019

Researchers use high-throughput mutagenesis approach to study ALS

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a devastating and incurable nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, causing loss of muscle control and normally death within a few years of diagnosis.

23 Sep 2019

Prilenia's lead compound selected to participate in first-ever ALS platform trial

Prilenia, a newly formed biotech company focused on developing novel treatments for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders, announces that Pridopidine, its lead compound, has been selected as the first of three potential new treatments to be included in the launch of the first ever platform trial in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

19 Sep 2019

New pathological mediator of ALS found

A research collaboration based in Japan has found a new pathological mediator of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which could have further implications for understanding the molecular breakdown that gives rise to the neurodegenerative disease that affects nearly half a million people around the world.

3 Sep 2019

Cracking the code of a recurrent brain cancer

One of the most common brain cancers in children, Sonic Hedgehog (SHH) medulloblastoma, also is one of the more survivable for most kids. Unfortunately, for a subset of patients the cancer resists treatment and relapses with a vengeance to then turn deadly.

30 Aug 2019

MSD collaborates with Francis Crick to find causes of motor neurone disease

Scientists at global biopharmaceutical company MSD and the Francis Crick Institute have started a unique new collaboration to understand the causes of Motor Neurone Disease and identify potential targets for future treatments, co-funded by MSD and the UK Medical Research Council.

21 Aug 2019

Northwestern scientists receive $3.1 million grant to investigate drug therapies for ALS

Two Northwestern University scientists have received a $3.1 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to collaborate and investigate drug therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

18 Aug 2019

Fungus used in traditional medicine could slow neuron loss in ALS

A Chinese caterpillar fungus that is used in traditional Chinese medicine has been found to minimize motor neuron loss in mice models of ALS.

25 Jul 2019

Intestinal microbes may affect course of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science have shown in mice that intestinal microbes, collectively termed the gut microbiome, may affect the course of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

22 Jul 2019

Using zebrafish to discover and identify new drugs to treat spinal cord lesions

A research team led by Leonor Saúde, Principal Investigator at Instituto de Medicina Molecular, in partnership with the company Technophage, SA, has designed a simple and efficient platform that uses zebrafish to discover and identify new drugs to treat spinal cord lesions.

22 Jul 2019

Researchers identify new subtypes of motor neurons and microglia present in ALS patients

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, is an adult-onset neurodegenerative disease that causes paralysis and ultimately death when the nerves enervating the lungs cease to carry the signals needed for breathing.

16 Jul 2019

Researchers explain how 'viral' agents of neurological diseases ended up in our DNA

What if the missing ‘environmental’ factor in some of our deadliest neurological diseases were really written in our genome?

11 Jul 2019

Study reveals first complete wiring diagram of an animal's nervous system

In a study published online today in Nature, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine describe the first complete wiring diagram of the nervous system of an animal, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, used by scientists worldwide as a model organism.

4 Jul 2019

Copper compound with potential as therapy for ALS shows further promise

A compound with potential as a treatment for ALS has gained further promise in a new study that showed it improved the condition of mice whose motor neurons had been damaged by an environmental toxin known to cause features of ALS.

2 Jul 2019

Protein Clumps In ALS Neurons Provide Potential Target For New Therapies

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is a neurological condition that affects motor neurons -- the nerve cells that control breathing and muscles.

2 Jul 2019

Anti-aging protein hormone Klotho shown to be neuroprotective in ALS model

Increasing the levels of the anti-aging protein hormone Klotho improves the neurological deficits and prolongs life span in an experimental model with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

28 Jun 2019

ALS mobility and survival could be improved by increasing glucose

Researchers from University of Arizona have come up with a new study that shows that increasing the amount of glucose that could be transformed into energy could help persons with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) by improving their mobility and increasing their survival rates.

26 Jun 2019

Newly approved gene therapy for SMA is based on delivery vehicle discovered by Penn expert

James Wilson, MD, PhD, recalls being struck by the devastating toll of rare diseases as a young physician in the 1980s. He set out on a path to correct the genes that cause these conditions, including spinal muscle atrophy (SMA), the most common inherited fatal disease in infants.

25 May 2019

Researchers develop stem cell-based model to study neuron resilience and vulnerability in ALS

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have developed a stem cell-based model in order to study the resilience and vulnerability of neurons in the neurodegenerative disease ALS.

9 May 2019