Abstract:Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease which mainly involves the pyramidal tract, the brain stem, and spinal cord anterior horn motor neuron. Major clinical manifestations include progressive aggravation of muscle atrophy, weakness, and bulbar palsy, and patients may eventually die of respiratory failure. In addition to the motor symptoms of ALS, its non-motor symptoms have attracted more and more attention. At present, the diagnosis of ALS is mainly based on medical history, clinical manifestation, and electrophysiological results, and auxiliary examinations only help to exclude other diseases with similar clinical manifestations. The research advances in genetics and biomarkers provide an objective reference for early diagnosis of ALS, exploration of pathophysiological mechanism, and evaluation of disease progression and prognosis. Although existing drugs for ALS cannot effectively stop the progression of ALS, new treatments including gene modification and stem cell transplantation hold promise for clinical application in the treatment of ALS.
