Trace elements were estimated in the spinal cord, liver and bone of five patients dying of motor neuron disease and five control subjects dying of non-neurological disease. The content of selenium in cord and liver and the cord manganese level were significantly increased in the motor neuron disease patients. These findings are discussed in terms of the possible aetiology of motor neuron disease.

Spinal motor neurons must extend their axons into the periphery through motor exit points (MEPs), but their cell bodies remain within spinal motor columns. It is not known how this partitioning is established in development. We show here that motor neuron somata are confined to the CNS by interactions with a neural crest subpopulation, boundary cap (BC) cells that prefigure the sites of spinal ...

Although many use the term ‘motor neuron disease’ to refer to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the most common and serious of these disorders occurring in adults, there are a wide variety of different motor neuron diseases, of varying severity, affecting all ages from infancy onwards (Table 1). This death of motor neurons is a form of neurodegenerative disease and results in paralysis of th...

ALS is a fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by a progressive loss of motor neurons and atrophy of distal axon terminals in muscle, resulting in loss of motor function. Motor end plates denervated by axonal retraction of dying motor neurons are partially reinnervated by remaining viable motor neurons; however, this axonal sprouting is insufficient to compensate for motor neuron loss. ...

Background Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive disease of motor neurons that has no cure or effective treatment. Any approach that could sustain minor motor function during terminal stages would improve quality of life. Objective We examined the impact of omega-3 (Ω-3) and Ω-6, on motor neuron function in mice expressing mutant human superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD-1), which domi...

Linked statistics from hospital records and death certificates were used to study the incidence of and mortality from motor neuron disease in a defined English population. The incidence of motor neuron disease, measured as first-admission rates for the disease, was studied from 1963 to 1985 and death certificates for the patients admitted to hospital were obtained to the end of 1990. The averag...

Clinical signs of upper motor neuron involvement are an essential observation to support the diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. However, clinical signs of upper motor neuron can be difficult to elicit in patients with motor neuron disease. One postulated reason for this problem is the presence of marked limb weakness and amyotrophy in motor neuron disease. This has been observed in pat...

Motor neuron disease is one of the major groups of neurodegenerative diseases, mainly represented by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Despite wide genetic and biochemical data regarding its pathophysiological mechanisms, motor neuron disease develops under a complex network of mechanisms not restricted to the unique functions of the alpha motor neurons but which actually involve diverse functions...

Mammalian motor programs are controlled by networks of spinal interneurons that set the rhythm and intensity of motor neuron firing. Motor neurons have long been known to receive prominent "C bouton" cholinergic inputs from spinal interneurons, but the source and function of these synaptic inputs have remained obscure. We show here that the transcription factor Pitx2 marks a small cluster of sp...