Beyond motor neurons

This is a pretty good recap of what we know and what else might be of importance in finding a treatment or cure for Kennedy's Disease.

The entire post can be found here: 

Beyond motor neurons: expanding the clinical spectrum in Kennedy’s disease

The conclusions are shown below:

Conclusions

In SBMA, as in other genetic conditions caused by mutations in ubiquitously expressed genes, the clinical picture is the result of a complex interplay between differentially affected tissues, which struggle to cooperate to maintain homeostasis.

Extra-motor neuron features in SBMA, such as primary muscle atrophy or hormonal abnormalities, are emerging as clinically highly impactful in patients’ quality of life and disease progression. Their thorough investigations are proving critical for a number of reasons. First, they may provide important insights into common mechanisms of pathogenesis. Second, the peripheral abnormalities may offer the opportunity for direct functional assessments and repetitive samplings, therefore representing potentially exploitable biomarkers to track disease progression and/or response to therapy. Lastly, disentangling the underlying molecular mechanisms of this highly integrated inter-tissues cross-talk may offer unparalleled opportunities for therapeutic interventions in the near future.