Increased levels of phosphorylated p38 have been found in motor neurons and glia in the familial mouse model of ALS (Tortarolo et al., 2003; Holasek et al., 2005; Veglianese et al., 2006; Dewil et al., 2007), even at the pre-symptomatic stage (Tortarolo et al., 2003), and p38 is also an important factor in a cell death pathway specific for motor neurons (Raoul et al., 2006). Here, MAPK14 is linked to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.