VEGFA and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: NRP1 is an important component in the VEGF signaling pathway, and in the ALS disease paradigm, treatment with VEGF has been shown to stabilize NMJs, improve motor function and prolong survival in ALS mice (Lambrechts et al., 2003; Azzouz et al., 2004; Storkebaum et al., 2005; Zheng et al., 2007) via its neuroprotective effects on motor neurons (Llado et al., 2013).