TDP-43 positive-inclusions occur in the striatum of ALS patients (Zhang et al., 2008), and spine density loss and synaptic hyper-activity in the SOD1 mouse motor cortex precedes dendritic shrinkage (Jara et al., 2012; Yasvoina et al., 2013; Fogarty et al., 2015, 2016c). The gene discussed is SOD1; the disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.