Photo source: alsa.org - Lou Gehrig died of the mysterious disease in 1941.

There may be hope for the 30,000 Americans suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the neurodegenerative condition known as Lou Gehrig’s disease that, until now, had no definitive cause.

The Los Angeles Times reports that researchers have pinpointed a common cause for multiple types of ALS, which could lead to groundbreaking treatments.

Scientists at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine reportedly found that the nervous system’s ability to send signals from the brain to the muscular system decreases as the protein-recycling system of the spinal cord and brain break down. Eventually, cells build up, blocking the path of the brain signals, resulting in paralysis. Patients who suffer from this condition become unable to move, speak, swallow or breathe.

“This is the first time we could connect [ALS] to a clear-cut biomedical mechanism,” Dr. Teepu Siddique, a neuroscientist at Northwestern, told the news source. “It has really made the direction we have to take very clear and sharp. We can now test for drugs that would regulate this protein pathway or optimize it, so it functions as it should in a normal state.”

There is no treatment for Lou Gehrig’s disease currently, with a reported 50 percent of those afflicted dying within three years of diagnosis. With this discovery, scientists can begin to work on revolutionary treatments for ALS, as well as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases, which are caused by similar protein build-up, reports the news provider.