The Latin American Epidemiology Network for ALS (Laenals)

Three different short-interval intracortical inhibition methods in early diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

“…Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a fatal disease with progressive degeneration of upper and lower motor neurons, and shows epidemiological and genetical heterogeneity (1)(2)(3)(4). The disease is categorized as definite, probable or possible ALS according to the Awaji criteria (5) if there is upper motor neuron (UMN) involvement, while patients with solely lower motor neuron (LMN) involvement are defined as progressive muscular atrophy (PMA).…”

The challenge of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis descriptive epidemiology: to estimate low incidence rates across complex phenotypes in different geographic areas

“…This hypothesis was first proposed in a population-based study on mortality in Cuba where mixed ancestry had shown to be protective in the sporadic form of the disease with rates that were lower (0.55/100 000) in the mixed population compared with black or white people (0.93 and 0.87/100 000) [26]. This hypothesis is going to be tested in LAENALS, a study on epidemiology of ALS, in countries with mixed ethnicities in Latin America [27]. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, the complex phenotype: more than a motor neuron disease ALS was traditionally considered to spare cognitive functions and early reports of cognitive and behavioural deficits in motor neuron diseases might have been overlooked initially [28].…”

“…This hypothesis was first proposed in a population-based study on mortality in Cuba where mixed ancestry had shown to be protective in the sporadic form of the disease with rates that were lower (0.55/100 000) in the mixed population compared with black or white people (0.93 and 0.87/100 000) [ 26 ]. This hypothesis is going to be tested in LAENALS, a study on epidemiology of ALS, in countries with mixed ethnicities in Latin America [ 27 ].…”