Astrocyte cells critical for learning skilled movements
Astrocyte cells critical for learning skilled movements | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

This article, while not mentioning Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis:

"In some mice, they disrupted the astrocytes’ ability to soak up the neurotransmitter glutamate, a chemical that excites neural activity when it is received at connections called synapses . . . ."

hints at a function known to be troubled in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis: glutamate re-uptake deficiency possibly leading to neuro-apoptosis causing excessive levels of glutamate . . . riluzole is thought to decrease glutamate exocytosis . . . minocycline was an apparently unsuccessful attempt at increasing glutamate re-uptake rates and therewith decreasing apoptosis risk (minocycline intervention apparently failed).