AKAVA Therapeutics’ experimental therapy AKV9, formerly NU-9, was superior to approved therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) at improving the health of lab-grown upper motor neurons from a mouse model of the disease, a study shows. Upper motor neurons are one of the two types of specialized nerve cells that…

While it’s long been believed that the death of motor neurons in the spinal cord is the main cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), new research suggests that degeneration of motor neurons in the brain takes place independently and may also contribute to the disease. The study’s work in…

For the first time, a compound was able to restore the health of diseased upper motor neurons — nerve cells that carry voluntary movement signals from the brain to the spinal cord — in the brain of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) mouse models, a study…

Most people with bulbar onset amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) showed distinct signs of motor neuron injury starting in the bulbar region of the brain that controls swallowing and speaking, before symptoms descended to regions that control the upper limbs and then the lower…

A $3.1 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) is intended to help two scientists at Northwestern University find new treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The grant was awarded to P. Hande Ozdinler, PhD, a professor of neurology at the university’s Feinberg…

A new diagnostic score accounting for age at disease onset and motor neuron dysfunction in the brain is able to distinguish amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) from other neuromuscular disorders early in disease process, a study reports. The study, “Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis diagnostic index: Toward a personalized diagnosis of ALS,”…