Credit: YURIE YAMADA
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are working toward a treatment for neurodegenerative diseases that targets SARM1, a key molecule in the death of axons, the wiring of the nervous system. Shown, the axons (green) are thinner in a rodent model of an inherited axonal peripheral neuropathy (left). When SARM1 is missing from rodents with the disorder, the axons are thicker (right) and indistinguishable from normal, healthy axons. Finding ways to block SARM1 could lead to new therapies for a broad range of neurodegenerative diseases.