BCL2 and Machado-Joseph disease: Overall, our cross-sectional findings of the increased BCL2/BAX transcript ratio in DCN and the increased insoluble protein BCL2/BAX ratio in DCN and the pons of post-mortem MJD brains suggest that, contrarily to what would be expected, cells in the DCN and pons, which are brain areas severely affected by degeneration in MJD [4,28,29] might be more prone to survive compared with controls.