Research progress of somatosensory involvement in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis / 中华神经科杂志

ABSTRACT

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by the degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons selectively. Although the motor system lesion is the most predominant clinical manifestation of ALS, with the progression of the understanding of the pathogenesis and clinical detection of the disease, more and more patients are found to have extra-motor features of ALS, such as somatosensory involvement, etc. The research results demonstrated that ALS might be a kind of disorder combined with sensory disturbance according to the electrophysiology, neuropathology, neuroimaging, animal model simulation, genetic evidence, and other methods detected. We, herein, review the prevalence and detection methods especially the aspect of genetic associations implicated in the sensory nerve disturbance of ALS.