Basic clinical features of the ALS patients and controls covered by the study, and numbers of surviving motoneurons (MNs) in the anterior horns of their spinal cord cervical enlargement (C4–C8 level).

aThis period included the 2-hour period immediately following the death, which the bodies, as required by the Polish law, spent at room temperature before being transferred to hospital mortuary refrigerator. bIn relation to the averaged mean number of surviving MNs in controls.