University of North Carolina. The molecular “killer” that destroys movement neurons in many patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) has been unmasked: it is an extremely unstable and reactive protein aggregate that “poisons” the central nervous system, leading to paralysis. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the American Academy of Sciences (PNAS), paves the way for new targeted drugs against ALS and sheds new light on other neurodegenerative diseases that share the presence of abnormal protein aggregates in the brain, such as Alzheimer’s.
