This article was originally published in Spanish on Univadis.
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease affecting motor neurons from the cortex, brain stem, and spinal cord. As a result of this disease, motor neurons gradually decrease functioning until they die, which causes progressive and fatal muscular paralysis of the patient. ALS is therefore the most severe motor neuron disease.
Its diagnosis is based on the presence of clinical symptoms such as difficulty walking or carrying out normal daily activities; stumbling and falling; weakness in the legs, feet, or ankles; weakness or clumsiness of the hands; difficulty talking or swallowing; muscle cramps; and spasms in the arms, shoulders, and tongue. These manifestations appear when motor neuron degeneration is in an advanced stage, therefore it is already too late to start a neuroprotective treatment to slow the progression of this incurable disease.
There is a great need to identify biomarkers that would allow for an early diagnosis of ALS. For this reason, researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in Spain, Mar Hospital, and Bellvitge University Hospital, all located in Barcelona, Spain, performed skin biopsies on individuals with this disease to analyze their dermis in search of biomarkers that could potentially become tools for early diagnosis.
