MND impacts nerve cells located in the brain and spinal cord, that instruct your muscles how to function.
This leads them to weaken and stiffen gradually and typically impacts how you walk, speak, eat and breathe.
This is a quite uncommon disease that is most common in people over 50, but grown-ups of any age can be impacted.
An individual's lifetime risk of contracting MND is 1 out of 300.
About five thousand people in the UK will have the condition at any one time.
Researchers are uncertain the cause of MND, but it is likely to be a mix of the genetic material - or inherited characteristics - you inherit from your mother and father when you are born, and other environmental influences.
In as many as one in 10 individuals with MND, specific genes are far more significant.
There is usually a hereditary background of the disease in these cases.
MND affects everyone differently.
Not everyone has the same symptoms, or experiences them in the identical sequence.
The condition can progress at varying rates too.
Some of the most frequent indicators are:
No cure, but there is hope coming from therapies focused on different forms of MND.
MND is not a single illness - it is actually multiple that result in the demise of nerve cells.
A new drug called tofersen works in just 2% of individuals, however it has been demonstrated to decelerate - and in certain instances even reverse - a portion of the manifestations of MND.
It has been described as "absolutely groundbreaking" and a "significant point of optimism" for the whole disease.
Although the medication has recently been approved in the EU, it is not currently accessible in the UK.
There is only one drug presently approved for the management of MND in the UK and approved by the NHS.
Riluzole may slow down the advancement of the condition and increase survival by a few months, but it cannot repair harm.
Some people can survive for decades with MND, including theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who was diagnosed at the age of 22 and lived to 76.
But for the majority, the illness advances rapidly and life expectancy is only several years.
Based on the non-profit MND Association, the condition claims the lives of a one-third of individuals within a twelve months and more than half within two years of identification.
As the nerve cells stop working, swallowing and respiration become increasingly difficult and many people need nutritional support or respiratory aids to help them remain living.
The exact cause has not yet been found, but top-level sportspeople seem overrepresented by MND.
Two studies from 2005 and 2009 showed that professional footballers have an increased risk of developing MND.
Research from 2022 by the Glasgow University involving four hundred former Scotland rugby union players determined they had an increased risk of acquiring the condition.
Researchers additionally discovered that rugby players who have experienced repeated head injuries have physiological variations that could render them more prone to contracting MND.
The MND Association recognizes there is a "correlation" between collision sports and MND.
It noted that while the athletes researched were had a greater chance to develop MND, it did not show the athletic activities directly led to the disease.
The organization also emphasises that "reported MND instances in these studies is still relatively low, and so concluding there is a definite increased risk could be misinterpreted if this is merely a grouping due to random chance".
Several high-profile athletes have been diagnosed with the condition in recent years.
These include former rugby union internationals, footballers, and cricket athletes.
In the United States, baseball player Lou Gehrig died from the condition at the age of 39.
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