Hypothalamic atrophy in primary lateral sclerosis, assessed by convolutional neural network-based automatic segmentation.

Primary lateral sclerosis (PLS) is a motor neuron disease (MND) which mainly affects upper motor neurons. Within the MND spectrum, PLS is much more slowly progressive than amyotrophic laterals sclerosis (ALS). `Classical` ALS is characterized by catabolism and abnormal energy metabolism preceding onset of motor symptoms, and previous studies indicated that the disease progression of ALS involves hypothalamic atrophy.

Addressing inter individual variability in CSF levels of brain derived proteins across neurodegenerative diseases.

Accurate diagnosis and monitoring of neurodegenerative diseases require reliable biomarkers. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) proteins are promising candidates for reflecting brain pathology; however, their diagnostic utility may be compromised by natural variability between individuals, weakening their association with disease. Here, we measured the levels of 69 pre-selected proteins in cerebrospinal fluid using antibody-based suspension bead array technology in a multi-disease cohort of 499 individuals with neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's disease (AD), behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia, primary progressive aphasias, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), corticobasal syndrome, primary supranuclear palsy, along with healthy controls.

Brain health: Pathway to primary prevention of neurodegenerative disorders of environmental origin.

While rising global rates of neurodegenerative disease encourage early diagnosis and therapeutic intervention to block clinical expression (secondary prevention), a more powerful approach is to identify and remove environmental factors that trigger long-latencybrain disease (primary prevention) by acting on a susceptible genotype or acting alone. The latter is illustrated by the post-World War II decline and disappearance of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Parkinsonism-Dementia Complex (ALS/PDC), a prototypical often-familial neurodegenerative disease formerly present in very high incidence on the island of Guam. Lessons learned from 75 years of investigation on the etiology of ALS/PDC include: the importance of focusing field research on the disease epicenter and patients with early-onset disease; soliciting exposure history from patients, family, and community to guide multidisciplinary biomedical investigation; recognition that disease phenotype may vary with exposure history, and that familial brain disease may have a primarily environmental origin.

Upregulated miR-10b-5p as a potential miRNA signature in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis patients.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal, adult-onset disease marked by a progressive degeneration of motor neurons (MNs) present in the spinal cord, brain stem and motor cortex. Death in most patients usually occurs within 2-4 years after symptoms onset. Despite promising progress in delineating underlying mechanisms, such as disturbed proteostasis, DNA/RNA metabolism, splicing or proper nucleocytoplasmic shuttling, there are no effective therapies for the vast majority of cases.

Safety, tolerability, and efficacy of fasudil in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ROCK-ALS): a phase 2, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.

Background: Fasudil is a small molecule inhibitor of Rho-associated kinase (ROCK) and is approved for the treatment of subarachnoid haemorrhage. In preclinical studies, fasudil has been shown to attenuate neurodegeneration, modulate neuroinflammation, and foster axonal regeneration. We aimed to investigate the safety, tolerability, and efficacy of fasudil in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.