AUTHOR=Huynh William , Dharmadasa Thanuja , Vucic Steve , Kiernan Matthew C. TITLE=Functional Biomarkers for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neurology VOLUME=9 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neurology/articles/10.3389/fneur.2018.01141 DOI=10.3389/fneur.2018.01141 ISSN=1664-2295 ABSTRACT=

The clinical diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) relies on determination of progressive dysfunction of both cortical as well as spinal and bulbar motor neurons. However, the variable mix of upper and lower motor neuron signs result in the clinical heterogeneity of patients with ALS, resulting frequently in delay of diagnosis as well as difficulty in monitoring disease progression and treatment outcomes particularly in a clinical trial setting. As such, the present review provides an overview of recently developed novel non-invasive electrophysiological techniques that may serve as biomarkers to assess UMN and LMN dysfunction in ALS patients.