I’m very sorry to hear that. Truly awful. All my sympathies.
What I’m curious about is: What about the motor neurons that control the muscles used by your eyes to focus and look in different places? Are they typically affected like the others?
Well, the facial muscles are innervated by cranial nerves, which do not run through the spinal column (the L in ALS stands for ‘lateral’ referring to the disintigration of the lateral portion of spinal cord), and the eye muscles in particular send input to several motor nuclei . Since the progression of ALS tends to start in the upper or lower extremities and progresses proximally, I would guess axon length might be a factor in cell survival. Also, since ALS affects both upper and lower motor neurons, I would guess the eye’s redundancy of having several motor nuclei might preserve its motor capacities.
I’m very sorry to hear that. Truly awful. All my sympathies.
What I’m curious about is: What about the motor neurons that control the muscles used by your eyes to focus and look in different places? Are they typically affected like the others?
Well, the facial muscles are innervated by cranial nerves, which do not run through the spinal column (the L in ALS stands for ‘lateral’ referring to the disintigration of the lateral portion of spinal cord), and the eye muscles in particular send input to several motor nuclei . Since the progression of ALS tends to start in the upper or lower extremities and progresses proximally, I would guess axon length might be a factor in cell survival. Also, since ALS affects both upper and lower motor neurons, I would guess the eye’s redundancy of having several motor nuclei might preserve its motor capacities.