Can a nerve injury trigger ALS?

Date:

February 20, 2019

Source:

University of Illinois at Chicago

Summary:

Researchers have demonstrated that a peripheral nerve injury can trigger the onset and spread of the disease in an animal model of ALS.

A growing collection of anecdotal stories raises the possibility that nerve injury in an arm or a leg can act as a trigger for the development amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS -- a progressive neurodegenerative disease also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, named after the famous New York Yankee who died of it in 1941.

Journal Reference:

1. Sarah Schram, Donald Chuang, Greg Schmidt, Hristo Piponov, Cory Helder, James Kerns, Mark Gonzalez, Fei Song, Jeffrey A. Loeb. Mutant SOD1 prevents normal functional recovery through enhanced glial activation and loss of motor neuron innervation after peripheral nerve injury. Neurobiology of Disease, 2019; 124: 469 DOI: 10.1016/j.nbd.2018.12.020