New research helps fight against motor neurone disease

New research from the University of Sheffield could offer solutions into slowing down the progression of motor neurone disease (MND). Scientists from the University of Sheffield's Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN) conducted pioneering research assessing how the devastating debilitating disease affects individual patients. MND is an incurable disease destroying the body's cells which control movement causing progressive disability. Present treatment options for those with MND only have only a modest effect in improving the patient's quality of life. Professor Pamela Shaw, Director of SITraN and her research team worked in collaboration with a fellow world leading MND scientist Dr Caterina Bendotti and her group at the Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy. Together they investigated why the progression of MND following onset of symptoms varies in speed, even in the presence of a known genetic cause of the condition. The research, published in the scientific journal Brain, investigated two mouse models of MND caused by an alteration in the SOD1 gene, a known cause of MND in humans.