ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A new Mayo Clinic study details an unprecedented method to predict brain aging disorders such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and Parkinson’s disease. Investigators studied common variations within axon guidance pathway genes and identified several gene variations (DNA fingerprints) that collectively predicted people who are at a high risk for ALS (2,000 times greater than the average risk). They also identified several gene variations that collectively predicted people at a high risk for Parkinson’s disease (nearly 400 times greater than the average risk). The probability that the findings were by chance was extremely small (less than one in a trillion). The axon guidance pathway consists of a complex array of chemical signals that wires the brain during fetal development and maintains and repairs brain wiring throughout life. The study is published online in the public access journal PLoS ONE. (www.plosone.org/home.action)
