Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: Highlights of Its Complexity

Dear Colleagues,

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) is the most common motor neuron disease of the adult, characterized by progressive skeletal muscle paralysis and premature death due to respiratory failure. There is still no effective therapy to prevent the development and progression of this devastating disease, for this reason ALS is currently an area of great interest in research.  In the last 25 years there have been enormous advancements in the identification of genetic risk factors associated with ALS susceptibility, highlighting the genetic and phenotypic heterogeneity of this disease. Thanks to these genetic discoveries and the development of new experimental models of the disease, it has become clear that ALS results from a complex phenomenon involving multifactorial, multicellular and multisystem mechanisms, ultimately leading to the progressive vulnerability and death of the motor neurons.

This Special Issue on ALS aims to review the latest advance in ALS research that include: 1) the new results from the large-scale genome wide association studies (GWAS) and next-generation sequencing; 2) the development of new in vitro and in vivo experimental models tailored to approach the genetic heterogeneity of the disease; 3) the identification of biomarkers that allows to predict the disease progression and to stratify ALS patients for clinical trials; 4) the study of interaction between different cell types in the axis that goes from the central nervous system to the muscle including other components like the immune system; and 5) the examination of strategies that potentially lead to disease-modifying treatments.

Dr. Caterina Bendotti
Dr. Nicola Ticozzi
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.