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Findings from a Scottish study into Motor Neurone Disease (MND) have been published today in the prestigious international neuropathology journal Acta Neuropathologica.
MND is a rapidly progressing terminal illness which can cause someone to lose the ability to walk, talk, eat, drink or breathe unaided. It is caused by the breakdown of motor neurons – the cells in the brain and spinal cord in charge of muscle control.
These cells are connected together by synapses, which were the primary focus of the study.
It discovered that the loss of synapses is associated with a decline in brain function, including thinking, planning, reasoning and emotions, which is seen in up to 50% of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) - the most common type of MND.
The discovery was made with extremely powerful technology, used in MND for the first time, which allowed the scientists to view detailed images of synapses around 5000x smaller than the thickness of a sheet of paper.
http://www.mndscotland.org.uk/latest/news/scottish-scientists-shine-a-light-on-mnd-in-new-findings/
MND is a rapidly progressing terminal illness which can cause someone to lose the ability to walk, talk, eat, drink or breathe unaided. It is caused by the breakdown of motor neurons – the cells in the brain and spinal cord in charge of muscle control.
These cells are connected together by synapses, which were the primary focus of the study.
It discovered that the loss of synapses is associated with a decline in brain function, including thinking, planning, reasoning and emotions, which is seen in up to 50% of patients with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) - the most common type of MND.
The discovery was made with extremely powerful technology, used in MND for the first time, which allowed the scientists to view detailed images of synapses around 5000x smaller than the thickness of a sheet of paper.
http://www.mndscotland.org.uk/latest/news/scottish-scientists-shine-a-light-on-mnd-in-new-findings/