TARDBP and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: For the staging concept, post-mortem studies of the brain pathology of ALS based on phosphorylated 43 kDa TAR DNA-binding protein (pTDP-43) revealed a possible dissemination in a regional sequence of four disease-related patterns (Braak et al., 2013; Brettschneider et al., 2013; Jucker and Walker, 2013), with the sequential protein pathology spreading initially from the motor neocortex toward the spinal cord and brainstem, followed by spreading to frontal, parietal and, ultimately, anteromedial temporal lobes (Ludolph and Brettschneider, 2015).