Genetics Tie ALS into the Frontotemporal Dementia Spectrum

They found a robust overlap between ALS and frontotemporal dementias, including corticobasal degeneration and progressive supranuclear palsy, but not between ALS and Parkinson’s or ALS and Alzheimer’s disease.Karch, Desikan and colleagues looked for genetic commonalities among ALS, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, corticobasal degeneration (CBD), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), sporadic frontotemporal dementia (FTD), and autosomal dominant FTD with TDP-43 inclusions. They used data from prior GWAS’s, including those run by the International FTD Genomics Consortium, the International Collaboration for FTD, the PSP Genetics Consortium, and the International PD Genomics Consortium. Altogether, the authors analyzed data from 124,876 cases and controls. The ALS data set comprised 31 independent cohorts, including 12,577 patients and 23,475 controls (Van Rheenen et al., 2016).
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