The purposes of the experiments reported is to provide an unambiguous demonstration that embryonic skeletal muscle contains factors that act directly on embryonic spinal motor neurons both to support their survival and to stimulate the outgrowth of neurites. Cells of lumbar and brachial ventral spinal cords from 6-day-old chick embryos were separated by centrifugation in a two-step metrizamide ...

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between early clinical features, pathologies, and biochemistry of the frontotemporal lobar degenerations (FTLDs), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), and corticobasal degeneration (CBD). METHODS The authors conducted pathologic reexamination with the most recent immunohistochemistry of all cases diagnosed with FTLD, PSP, and CBD between 1970 and 2004. T...

OBJECTIVE Homozygous mutation in the ALS2 gene and the resulting loss of the guanine exchange factor activity of the ALS2 protein is causative for autosomal recessive early-onset motor neuron disease that is thought to predominantly affect upper motor neurons. The goal of this study was to elucidate how the motor system is affected by the deletion of ALS2. METHODS ALS2-deficient mice were gen...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor neuron death. ALS can be induced by mutations in the superoxide dismutase 1 gene (SOD1). Evidence for the non-cell-autonomous nature of ALS emerged from the observation that wild-type glial cells extended the survival of SOD1 mutant motor neurons in chimeric mice. To uncover the contribution of astrocytes ...

The evolutionary origin of novelties is a central problem in biology. At a cellular level this requires, for example, molecularly resolving how brainstem motor neurons change their innervation target from muscle fibers (branchial motor neurons) to neural crest-derived ganglia (visceral motor neurons) or ear-derived hair cells (inner ear and lateral line efferent neurons). Transplantation of var...

abstract objective autosomal recessive spinal muscular atrophy (sma) is, after cystic fibrosis, the second most common fatal monogenic disorder and the second most common hereditary neuromuscular disease after duchenne dystrophy. the disease is characterized by degeneration of anterior horn cells leading to progressive paralysis with muscular atrophy. depending on the clinical type (werdnig- ho...

Proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a neurodegenerative disorder caused by deficiency of the ubiquitous Survival of Motor Neuron (SMN) protein. SMN has been shown to be transported in granules along the axon and moved through cytoskeletal elements. However, the role and nature of SMN granules are still not well characterized. Here, using immunocytochemical methods and time-lapse studies w...

Background: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a genetic motor neuron disease caused by mutations in the SMN1 (Survival Motor Neuron) gene, which leads to hypotonia and muscle weakness with high mortality related respiratory involvement. Gene therapy (GT) (onasemnogeno aberpavovec) for SMA, through an adeno-associated viral vector 9 (AAV9) was recently approved our country, but its safety efficac...