amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (als) misdiagnosis has many broad implications for the patient and the neurologist. potentially curative treatments exist for certain als mimic syndromes, but delay in starting these therapies may have an unfavorable effect on outcome. hence, it is important to exclude similar conditions. in this review, we discuss some of the important mimics of als.

IMPORTANCE Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in which microglia play a significant and active role. Recently, a rare missense variant (p.R47H) in the microglial activating gene TREM2 was found to increase the risk of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer disease. Whether the p.R47H variant is a risk factor for ALS is not known. OBJECTIV...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a devastating neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive death of motor neurons, leading to paralysis and eventual death. There is presently no cure for ALS, and only two drugs are available, neither of which provide significant extension of life. The wide variation in onset and progression of the disease, both in sporadic and even in strong...

Juvenile amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) with basophilic inclusions is a well-recognized entity. However, the molecular underpinnings of this devastating disease are poorly understood. Here, we present genetic and neuropathological characterizations in two young women with fatal rapidly progressive ALS with basophilic inclusions. In one case, a germline mutation (P525L) was detected in the ...

C9orf72 is the most common genetic cause of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) in Caucasian populations. However, the relationship between C9orf72 repeats and Alzheimer's disease (AD) was not clear. Additionally, there were few articles assessing C9orf72 in other ethnicities with ALS. In this meta-analysis, we aimed to investigate the relationship between C9or...

In the last years, numerous studies have focused on understanding the metabolism of RNA and its implication in disease processes but abnormal RNA metabolism is still unknown. RNA plays a central role in translating genetic information into proteins and in many other catalytic and regulatory tasks. Recent advances in the study of RNA metabolism revealed complex pathways for the generation and ma...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal and incurable neurodegenerative disease characterized by the progressive loss of motor neurons in the spinal cord and brain. In particular, autosomal dominant mutations in the superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) gene are responsible for ~20% of all familial ALS cases. The clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-CRISPR-associate...

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is the most common adult-onset neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the death of large motor neurons in the cerebral cortex and spinal cord (Tandan and Bradley, 1985). Dysfunction and death of these cell populations lead to progressive muscle weakness, atrophy, fasciculations, spasticity and ultimately, paralysis and death usually within 3 to 5 years a...

Recent evidence suggested that muscle degeneration might lead and/or contribute to neurodegeneration, thus it possibly play a key role in the etiopathogenesis and progression of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). To test this hypothesis, this study attempted to categorize functionally relevant genes within the genome-wide expression profile of human ALS skeletal muscle, using microarray techn...

BACKGROUND Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable fatal motoneuron disease with a lifetime risk of approximately 1:400. It is characterized by progressive weakness, muscle wasting, and death ensuing 3-5 years after diagnosis. Granulocyte-colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) is a drug candidate for ALS, with evidence for efficacy from animal studies and interesting data from pilot clin...