This prompted Swedish researchers at Umeå University to investigate.
They studied the eye muscles of people with ALS to understand why this muscle group is the only one that resists the disease.
The eye is unique
The researchers mapped three major groups of muscle fibers in the eyes and observed how they changed as ALS disease spread through the body.
They found that ALS effectively broke down two groups of muscle fibers in the eye, similar to those in the arms and muscles.
However, the eye also has a third group of muscle fibers, which are not found in other muscle groups.
And when the researchers observed the unique eye muscle fibers, they saw that they not only resisted the disease – they also increased in number to replace the broken muscle fibers.
This may explain why the eyes continue to function well into the course of the disease, while other muscles die.
The body is its own weapon
The study shows that not everything is made worse by ALS, but that the body does have defense mechanisms to some extent.
“These results show that not everything gets worse, but that the body can also partly resist ALS,” says Arvin Behzadi, a doctoral student at Umeå University and lead author of the study.
The research offers hope that eventually a treatment for ALS can be developed that can halt the progression of the disease.
However, the lead author of the study wants to call this a breakthrough in ALS research.
“We are still a long way from healing. But these results give hope for future research,’ says Behzadi.
Muscle fibers in a syringe
The unique muscle fibers of the eye will soon be put under the microscope to find out exactly why some nerve cells of the eye are resistant to ALS.
It will then be investigated whether these muscle fibers can be injected into the nerve cells and muscles that are no match for ALS.
It would be a big step for the treatment of ALS if researchers succeed in stimulating affected nerve cells in such a way that we can continue to move our muscles.
2023-07-13 10:02:22
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