About the Authors

Luc Dupuis

Affiliations Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany, U692 - Laboratoire de Signalisations Moléculaires et Neurodégénérescence, INSERM, Strasbourg, France, UMRS692, Faculté de Médecine, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France

Reinhard Dengler

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Hannover Medical School, Hannover, Germany

Michael T. Heneka

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

Thomas Meyer

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Charité University Hospital, Berlin, Germany

Stephan Zierz

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

Jan Kassubek

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Wilhelm Fischer

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Franziska Steiner

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Eva Lindauer

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Markus Otto

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Jens Dreyhaupt

Affiliation Institute of Epidemiology and Medical Biometry, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

Torsten Grehl

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Ruhr-Universität, Bochum, Germany

Andreas Hermann

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Dresden University of Technology, Dresden, Germany

Andrea S. Winkler

Affiliation Department of Neurology, Technical University, Munich, Germany

Ulrich Bogdahn

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany

Reiner Benecke

Affiliation Neurology clinic, University of Rostock, Rostock, Germany

Bertold Schrank

Affiliation Deutsche Klinik für Diagnostik, Wiesbaden, Germany

Carsten Wessig

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany

Julian Grosskreutz

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Jena, Germany

Albert C. Ludolph

Albert.Ludolph@rku.de

Affiliation Department of Neurology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

the GERP ALS Study Group

Membership of the GERP ALS study group is provided in the Acknowledgments.

Competing Interests

Takeda Pharma GmbH partly funded this study. The trial used Pioglitazone which is a Takeda product. There are no other patents, products in development or marketed products to disclose. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: RD MTH TM SZ WF ACL. Performed the experiments: RD MTH TM SZ JK WF FS EL MO TG AH ASW UB RB BS CW JG ACL. Analyzed the data: LD JK MO JD ACL. Wrote the paper: LD.