Aiming at understanding the molecular causes for the neurodegenerative disease Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Valbuena et al. carried out a metabolomics study of a well-characterized murine neuronal cell model of familial ALS expressing wild-type or mutant (G93A) superoxide dismutase (SOD) 132. Here, SOD1 is linked to neurodegenerative disease.