Alice Melão,  —

Rilutek (riluzole) extends survival of patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) who are at  advanced stages of the disease, rather than preventing disease progression is early stages. Those findings were reported by a team led by King’s College London researchers and published in The Lancet Neurology. The…

Newly identified mutations in the KIF5A gene were recently found to contribute to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the result of a large-scale collaborative study involving more than 250 researchers from several of the world’s renowned ALS research labs. John Landers, PhD, professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical…

After eight years of research, scientists have finally discovered how TDP-43 and hnRNP A1 — two proteins that have been linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) — work together to promote the disease. TDP-43 was found to bind to the hnRNP A1 RNA sequence and promote production of a…

Nerve cells that control movement change their size as ALS progresses, becoming larger than normal at first but then ending up much smaller, a mouse study showed. An important finding was that the changes can prevent nerve cells from facilitating communication between the brain and muscles. The research provided scientists with…

Some immune cells in the brain can protect it from the damaging effects of faulty TDP-43 protein, preventing the progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in mice, University of Pennsylvania researchers report. The findings challenged a long-held assumption that the immune cells play a role in damaging nerve cells, the team…

ALS patients who took Rilutek (riluzole) for at least three-fourths of the time they had their disease survived longer than those who took it less, an Italian study reports. Rilutek is the first ALS treatment to obtain U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. Scientists are still not sure how it…

Fat molecules appear to play a role in the development of ALS, which means that targeting them could be a way to treat the disease, French researchers concluded in a review of studies on the topic. This is particularly true of derivations of the fat molecule cholesterol known as oxysterols, which…

The amount of RNA molecules present in the blood and central nervous system of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) patients seems to play a role in the onset and development of the disease, a study published in the journal Scientific Reports showed. A better understanding of the involvement of RNA molecules…

University of North Carolina researchers have identified the DNA sequence in a virus that lets it deliver treatments for neurodegenerative diseases to the brain. The finding may pave the way for the development of improved and safer gene therapies for diseases like ALS, the team said. A number of gene therapies…

UCLA researchers have identified the regulatory network that controls the transformation of neuronal progenitor cells into movement nerve cells in chicken and mouse embryos. The study adds insight into the development and functioning of spinal movement nerve cells. It also may contribute to the production of stem cell-derived movement nerve…