Many conditions can lead to secondary mitochondrial dysfunction and affect other diseases, including Alzheimer’s disease, muscular dystrophy and possibly Parkinson’s disease.
In many cases, energy failure may not be an initiating insult, but may occur downstream within cell-death pathways, added the study.
The study added: “In those instances, we must understand whether modulating energy failure is still potentially useful as a therapeutic intervention, or whether the affected cells are past the point of no return.”
The study hypothesised the link between energy failure and neuronal dysfunction.