{"id":224119,"date":"2025-10-27T22:08:37","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/why-does-als-take-away-body-movement-the-hidden-burden-that-seals-the-fate-of-motor-neurons"},"modified":"2025-10-27T22:08:37","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T03:08:37","slug":"why-does-als-take-away-body-movement-the-hidden-burden-that-seals-the-fate-of-motor-neurons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/why-does-als-take-away-body-movement-the-hidden-burden-that-seals-the-fate-of-motor-neurons","title":{"rendered":"Why does ALS take away body movement? The hidden burden that seals the fate of motor neurons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/why-does-als-take-away-body-movement-the-hidden-burden-that-seals-the-fate-of-motor-neurons.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease, is among the most challenging neurological disorders: relentlessly progressive, universally fatal, and without a cure even after more than a century and a half of research. Despite many advances, a key unanswered question remains\u2014why do motor neurons, the cells that control body movement, degenerate while others are spared?<\/p>\n<p>In a study appearing in <i>Nature Communications<\/i>, Kazuhide Asakawa and colleagues used single-cell\u2013resolution imaging in transparent zebrafish to show that large spinal <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/motor+neurons\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">motor neurons <\/a>\u2014which generate strong body movements and are most vulnerable in ALS\u2014operate under a constant, intrinsic burden of protein and organelle degradation.<\/p>\n<p>These neurons maintain high baseline levels of autophagy, proteasome activity, and the <a href=\"https:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/unfolded+protein+response\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">unfolded protein response<\/a>, suggesting a continuous struggle to maintain protein quality control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig\u2019s disease, is among the most challenging neurological disorders: relentlessly progressive, universally fatal, and without a cure even after more than a century and a half of research. Despite many advances, a key unanswered question remains\u2014why do motor neurons, the cells that control body movement, degenerate while others are spared? [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-neuroscience"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224119\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}