• Question: What is SMA? In a question sent to you, you said it was a disease you studied? :)

    Asked by evieisnotonfire to Ali on 13 Nov 2014.
    • Photo: Alison Thomson

      Alison Thomson answered on 13 Nov 2014:

      Hi! SMA stands for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, which is a type of motor neurone disease. It’s a disease that you inherit from your mum and dad, and it causes your motor neurones (your nerves that tell your muscles what to do) to die, and it causes a lot of problems in the rest of the body – which is where I come in. I study the blood vessels and how they are affected in SMA.
      What I’ve found so far is that there aren’t as many blood vessels, so that probably causes a lot of other complications in the disease.

      I hope that answers your question! For a bit more on it, have a look at my profile!

Comments