ReviewFrontiers in molecular neuroscience2020
The Neuromuscular Junction in Health and Disease: Molecular Mechanisms Governing Synaptic Formation and Homeostasis.
Review in Frontiers in molecular neuroscience, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 113 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
113 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 184 citations in OpenAlex.
- Exploring motor unit and neuromuscular junction dysfunction in aging and sarcopenia: insights from electromyography in systematic review.GeroScience · 2026Pooled it
- A molecular systems architecture of neuromuscular junction in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.NPJ systems biology and applications · 2025Pooled it
- Using human 3D organoid models to gain mechanistic insight in motor neuron diseases.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026Review
- Plasma CAF22 Predicts Incident Freezing of Gait in Parkinson's Disease: A Prospective Cohort Study.Journal of molecular neuroscience : MN · 2026Article
- Interplay between store-operated calcium entry and mitochondrial phosphate handling modulates force and fatigue during exercise.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Muscle fibre denervation in ageing.Clinical science (London, England : 1979) · 2026Review
- The Motor Neuromuscular Axis: The Overlooked Element of Developmental Programming in Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Junctions in Jeopardy: the neuromuscular junction is a selective pathological target in Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.Mammalian genome : official journal of the International Mammalian Genome Society · 2026Review
- Acetylcholine in Brain-Body Communication: Biological Mechanisms and Physiological Roles.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Restoring early postnatal synaptic dysregulation rescues motor neuron degeneration in a mouse model of Spinal and Bulbar Muscular Atrophy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Review of the Pathology of Muscle in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Neuromuscular Junction as a Molecular Target in Sarcopenia: Mechanisms, Therapeutic Strategies, and Future Directions.Molecular diagnosis & therapy · 2026Review
- Extracellular vesicles at the neuromuscular junction: messengers of synaptic health and disease.Cell and tissue research · 2026Review
- Hyaluronic Acid-Based Bioink for Anisotropic Neural Tissue Cryobioprinting.International journal of extreme manufacturing · 2026Article
- Integrated cross-species translation and biophysical multi-scale modeling links molecular signatures and locomotory phenotypes in spaceflight-induced sarcopenia.NPJ microgravity · 2026Article
- Neuromuscular junction instability with inactivity: morphological and functional changes after 10 days of bed rest in older adults.The Journal of physiology · 2026Article
- Methods to Study the Role of Cytoskeletal Motor Proteins in the Organization of the Postsynaptic Membrane.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2026Article
- Article
- Novel Translational Concept: Axon-to-Muscle Exosomal Signaling as an Emerging Therapeutic Target in Spinal Muscular Atrophy.Biomedicines · 2025Review
- The Neuromuscular Junction: A Shared Vulnerability in Aging and Disease.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Review
53 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The neuromuscular junction (NMJ) is a highly specialized synapse between a motor neuron nerve terminal and its muscle fiber that are responsible for converting electrical impulses generated by the motor neuron into electrical activity in the muscle fibers. On arrival of the motor nerve action potential, calcium enters the presynaptic terminal, which leads to the release of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine (ACh). ACh crosses the synaptic gap and binds to ACh receptors (AChRs) tightly clustered on the surface of the muscle fiber; this leads to the endplate potential which initiates the muscle action potential that results in muscle contraction. This is a simplified version of the events in neuromuscular transmission that take place within milliseconds, and are dependent on a tiny but highly structured NMJ. Much of this review is devoted to describing in more detail the development, maturation, maintenance and regeneration of the NMJ, but first we describe briefly the most important molecules involved and the conditions that affect their numbers and function. Most important clinically worldwide, are myasthenia gravis (MG), the Lambert-Eaton myasthenic syndrome (LEMS) and congenital myasthenic syndromes (CMS), each of which causes specific molecular defects. In addition, we mention the neurotoxins from bacteria, snakes and many other species that interfere with neuromuscular transmission and cause potentially fatal diseases, but have also provided useful probes for investigating neuromuscular transmission. There are also changes in NMJ structure and function in motor neuron disease, spinal muscle atrophy and sarcopenia that are likely to be secondary but might provide treatment targets. The NMJ is one of the best studied and most disease-prone synapses in the nervous system and it is amenable to
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.