Tara Gaston
Advisor: Dr. Ralph Sorensen

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease in which there is no cure as well as very limited treatment options. The current use of corticosteroids to reduce physiological stresses, such as inflammation, excitotoxicity, lipid peroxidation, and metabolic and oxidative stress, to the central nervous system unfortunately have devastating side effects with long term use by patients. It has thus been hypothesized that non-hormonal steroid drugs would be a better treatment option due to their ability to reduce physiological stresses but without the negative side effects. Several laboratory engineered non-hormonal steroid drugs were tested on NSC34 cells for their ability to revert glutamate induced exitotoxicity and further nerve cell death, two stresses also caused by ALS. After the first trial, two of the four drugs tested were neuroprotective against the glutamate damage, whereas in the second trial all four drugs were not only neuroprotective, but they were also found not to be significantly different from the corticosteroid drug, prednisone, that is used as treatment today. Thus, with equal effectiveness in treatment, but no negative side effects, non-hormonal steroid drugs seem to be a preferred option. In vivo studies are the next step in confirming this hypothesis as in vitro nerve cells behave differently than human nerve cells in which there are external factors playing a role as well.