Pathomechanism Heterogeneity in the Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and Frontotemporal Dementia Disease Spectrum: Providing Focus Through the Lens of Autophagy.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) constitute aggressive neurodegenerative pathologies that lead to the progressive degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons and of neocortical areas, respectively. In the past decade, the identification of several genes that cause these disorders indicated that the two diseases overlap in a multifaceted spectrum of conditions. The autophagy-lysosome system has been identified as a main intersection for the onset and progression of neurodegeneration in ALS/FTD.