Northwestern University Oct 31 2025 A new Northwestern University study using patient nervous tissue and lab-grown human neurons has uncovered how a key disease protein, TDP-43, drives overactive nerve cells in the neurodegenerative diseases amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).  The findings not only explain a long-standing mystery of why nerve cells overfire in ALS and FTD but also highlight a promising new drug to slow or prevent disease progression. The