Spinal Muscular Atrophy

Spinal muscular atrophy is the name for denervating disorders of skeletal muscles caused by hereditary degeneration of lower motor neurons. This definition includes not only infantile and juvenile spinal muscular atrophy but also such diverse diseases such as Kennedy syndrome and neuronal Charcot–Marie–Tooth disease. These diseases differ in heredity and genetic basis; spinal muscular atrophy in the strict sense is a recessively inherited condition localized on chromosome 5. Keywords: motor neuron disease; hereditary; genetics; histopathology; pathogenesis