CNTF and Motor neuron atrophy: CNTF has been found to affect motor neuron survival in vitro, during development, after injury to motor neuron systems, and in genetic models of motor neuron degeneration [57], providing a rationale to develop CNTF as a treatment for ALS [56,57,62,66,67,68,69] and SCI [49,52], in which ventral motor neuron degeneration is extensive [57].