Lincoln had shattered nerves, study suggests

By Heather Whipps

updated 12:42 p.m. ET Jan. 29, 2007

Abraham Lincoln may have suffered from a genetic disorder that literally shattered his nerves, a new study on worms suggests.

Many of the president's descendants have a gene mutation that affects the part of the brain controlling movement and coordination, researchers discovered last year. The mutation prevents nerve cells from "communicating" with each other properly, but scientists weren't sure exactly how or why.

The malformed protein could actually be causing nerve cells to break altogether, show the experiments announced today by scientists at the University of Utah.

If Lincoln had the disease, it would explain the gangly walk for which he was famous, they said. 

Humans produce four protein genes called beta spectrin, which help our cells regulate walking and talking and anything else requiring movement. Normally, wire-like axons that connect each nerve cell flex and bend when we do.  

The mutation of one of the beta spectrin genes causes the degenerative nerve disorder spinocerebellar ataxia type 5, which researchers at the University of Minnesota found in 90 out of 299 of Lincoln's living descendants in a 2006 test. Those afflicted with ataxia lose coordination and sometimes end up confined to a wheelchair.

Until now, most scientists thought ataxia occurred because nerve cells didn't have beta spectrin linking them together with the same strength they do in a healthy individual.

Nematode worms also produce beta spectrin. When researchers removed the beta spectrin gene from worms, however, the worms' wiry cell axons didn't just malfunction — they severed.

The very same thing could be happening in humans, the University of Utah biologists speculate.

"It's incredible and so very simple that this one protein is what keeps neurons from breaking in your body," said study author Michael Bastiani, of the University of Utah's Brain Institute. "The entire functioning of the nervous system depends on these wire-like axons between nerve cells."

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