ArticleEuropean journal of neurology2023
Lower hypothalamic volume with lower body mass index is associated with shorter survival in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Article in European journal of neurology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 37 citations in OpenAlex.
- Experimental evidence of electroacupuncture in ALS mouse models: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in neurologyPooled it
- Beyond mobility: A prospective study on diet and metabolism in hereditary spastic paraplegia.Metabolic brain disease · 2026Trial
- Potential Roles of Neuroimaging in Motor Neuron Disease.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2026Review
- Review
- Multimodal ultra-high-field MRI, clinical, cognitive, and genetic profiles across the ALS-FTD spectrum.Scientific data · 2026Article
- The hypothalamus is an early site of mitochondrial failure and neuro-immune circuit disruption in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.Molecular metabolism · 2026Article
- Driving with Motor Neuron Disease: Disease-Specific Considerations, Multi-Domain Assessments and Support Strategies.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- White matter changes in reward circuits of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: a fixel-based study of appetite loss.BMC medicine · 2026Article
- Large-scale mapping of the MCH network in ALS mice reveals the vulnerability of dopaminergic and GABAergic neurons in zona incerta.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2026Article
- Magnetic resonance imaging applications to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis beyond the central nervous system.Frontiers in neurology · 2026Review
- Uncovering hypothalamic network disruption in ALS.Journal of neurology · 2025Article
- Differential effects of overexpression of mutant huntingtin and TDP-43 in agouti-related protein neurons in the arcuate nucleus of the hypothalamus in mice.Acta neuropathologica communications · 2025Article
- Sleep in neurodegenerative diseases: A focus on melatonin, melanin-concentrating hormone and orexin.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2025Review
- An Annotated Multi-Site and Multi-Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging Dataset for the study of the Human Tongue Musculature.Scientific data · 2025Article
- New developments in imaging in ALS.Journal of neurology · 2025Review
- Sensory Changes Related to Swallowing in Motor Neurone Disease.Dysphagia · 2025Review
- An fMRI dataset for appetite neural correlates in people living with Motor Neuron Disease.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Hypothalamic atrophy in primary lateral sclerosis, assessed by convolutional neural network-based automatic segmentation.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Racial and ethnic disparities in ALS: a longitudinal electronic health records study.Therapeutic advances in neurological disorders · 2025Article
- Appetite loss in patients with motor neuron disease: impact on weight loss and neural correlates of visual food cues.Brain communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
background and purposeWeight loss in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is associated with faster disease progression and shorter survival. Decreased hypothalamic volume is proposed to contribute to weight loss due to loss of appetite and/or hypermetabolism. We aimed to investigate the relationship between hypothalamic volume and body mass index (BMI) in ALS and Alzheimer's disease (AD), and the associations of hypothalamic volume with weight loss, appetite, metabolism and survival in patients with ALS.
methodsWe compared hypothalamic volumes from magnetic resonance imaging scans with BMI for patients with ALS (n = 42), patients with AD (n = 167) and non-neurodegenerative disease controls (n = 527). Hypothalamic volumes from patients with ALS were correlated with measures of appetite and metabolism, and change in anthropomorphic measures and disease outcomes.
resultsLower hypothalamic volume was associated with lower and higher BMI in ALS (quadratic association; probability of direction = 0.96). This was not observed in AD patients or controls. Hypothalamic volume was not associated with loss of appetite (p = 0.58) or hypermetabolism (p = 0.49). Patients with lower BMI and lower hypothalamic volume tended to lose weight (p = 0.08) and fat mass (p = 0.06) over the course of their disease, and presented with an increased risk of earlier death (hazard ratio [HR] 3.16, p = 0.03). Lower hypothalamic volume alone trended for greater risk of earlier death (HR 2.61, p = 0.07).
conclusionThese observations suggest that lower hypothalamic volume in ALS contributes to positive and negative energy balance, and is not universally associated with loss of appetite or hypermetabolism. Critically, lower hypothalamic volume with lower BMI was associated with weight loss and earlier death.
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