MTOR and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis: To test whether the involvement of an aberrant mTOR-autophagy pathway is related to aberrant cytokine secretion by ALS astrocytes, we attempted to assess cytokine secretion by control subject and patient astrocytes in vitro by pharmacologically modulating the mTOR-autophagy pathway in astrocytes using 3-methyladenine (3-MA) (a classical autophagy inhibitor) and rapamycin (a classical autophagy activator).