Is MND one disease?

A clinical perspective

Prof Nigel Leigh from King’s College Hospital, described the symptoms and physical characteristics of motor neurone disease. Since it was first described in 1869, many different forms have been identified. He concluded that biomedical researchers and clinicians around the world needed to pool their knowledge to understand how different forms of MND occur at a molecular level, to help in the search for effective treatments.

Abstract C1 on Prof Leigh's presentation (132 kb)

A pathological perspective

Prof Paul Ince, a neuropathologist from Sheffield University, continued this theme, describing the variations in dying motor neurones, as seen under a microscope. By looking at patterns of motor neurone damage in different parts of the brain and spinal cord, he could relate this to the physical characteristics of disease seen in these people.

A database perspective

Jonathon Katz, from California Pacific Medical Centre in USA presented a study investigating why some people live for longer than others with the disease. To do this he looked at groups of people listed on their MND database who had died. Comparisons were made between people who had lived for less than one year after symptom onset (‘short survivors’) and those who had lived for more than five years (‘long survivors’). No differences were found between the types of motor neurone affected ( See More About MND (154 kb) ) or whether or not Riluzole had been taken. The most striking difference between the groups was that in the long survivors, MND only affected one region of the body (e.g. one leg or one arm). The next stage of this research will be to study people who have been newly diagnosed and to determine whether the region(s) of the body affected is predictive of their disease progression.