The SMAFoundation rented a ballroom at a big neuroscience conference in San Diego in October 2003 and sponsored a seminar, "Progress in Motor Neuron Disease, " flying in renowned SMA researchers to give lectures.

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It would permit the profoundly handicapped those paralysed by conditions such as motor-neuron disease and cerebral palsy to communicate more easily than is now possible even with the text-based speech engines used by the likes of Stephen Hawking.

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To compensate for the resulting neuron shortage, the remaining neurons sprout new fibers, and the surviving motor units become enlarged.

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