SOD1 and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: In the corresponding studies it was shown that the depletion of microglia by ganciclovir did not affect the development of beta amyloid plaques in two different mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease (Grathwohl et al., 2009), nor did the absence of microglia change disease progression and motor neuron degeneration in the SOD mouse model of ALS (Gowing et al., 2008).