ArticleScientific reports2024
Early life events may be the first steps on the multistep path to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Article in Scientific reports, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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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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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Identifying Modifiable Factors and Their Joint Effect on Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: A Prospective Cohort Study in the UK Biobank.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Neurodegenerative-related gene rescue in anterior insula after early life maltreatment restores adult social interaction in male mice.Molecular psychiatry · 2026Article
- From Perinatal Stress to Schizophrenia: The Emerging Role of Glial Pathology.Annals of neurosciences · 2026Review
- Early life social defeat in mice reduces prefrontal innervation of downstream structures in a regionally specific manner.Translational psychiatry · 2026Article
- Exploring the ALS Multistep Model.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- ALS: a field in motion.Scientific reports · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A combination of multiple genetic and environmental factors appear to be required to trigger the onset of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Early life environmental exposures have been reported to be risk factors for a variety of adult-onset diseases, so we used data from an online international ALS case-control questionnaire to estimate whether any of these could be risk factors for the clinical onset of ALS. Responses were obtained from 1,049 people aged 40 years or more, 568 with ALS and 481 controls. People with ALS were more likely to have been born and lived longer in a country area than in a city area, to have younger parents, and to have lower educational attainment and fewer years of education. No ALS-control differences were found in sibling numbers, birth order, adult height, birth weight, parent smoking, Cesarean delivery, or age of starting smoking. In conclusion, early life events and conditions may be part of a group of polyenvironmental risk factors that act together with polygenetic variants to trigger the onset of ALS. Reducing exposure to adverse environmental factors in early life could help to lower the risk of later developing ALS.
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Registered trials
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