Previous studies assessing the spinal cord have shown that subtle damage in ALS patients following needle injections (Mazzini et al., 2012; Riley et al., 2014) and even severe damage resulting from stab-wound trauma in the SOD1 rat (Suzuki et al., 2010) did not accelerate motor neuron degeneration. The gene discussed is SOD1; the disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.