It is worth to note that although important connections between protective autophagy and ALS have been observed in genetic and preclinical studies, there are numbers of studies that suggest the treatment with general “autophagy inducers” such as rapamycin (mTOR inhibitor) does not help to ameliorate disease progression, or may even exacerbate neurotoxicity as seen in ALS animal models (Xia et al., 2016). The gene discussed is MTOR; the disease is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.