Staging system in ALS shows potential tracks of disease progression, Penn study finds | #ALS AWARENESS #LouGehrigsDisease #PARKINSONS | Scoop.it

PHILADELPHIA - The motor neuron disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, progresses in a stepwise, sequential pattern which can be classified into four distinct stages, report pathologists with the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in the Annals of Neurology. This post-mortem staging of ALS brain and spinal cord tissues shows, for the first time, how the fatal degenerative disease may progress from one starting point in the central nervous system to other regions of brain and spinal cord. As evidence mounts showing that other neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, transmit disease-specific pathological proteins from cell-to-cell within the interconnected brain regions of..........