A novel primary response gene, Alivin 1 (ali1), is an activity-dependent gene and promotes survival of neurons. Sequence analyses reveal that rat, mouse, and human Ali1 proteins contain seven leucine-rich repeats, one IgC2-like loop and a transmembrane domain, and display homology to Kek and Trk families. Results suggest that expression of ali1 promotes depolarization-dependent survival of the granule neuron. Mouse ali1 was mapped to a locus approximately 55.3 cM from the centromere on chromosome 15 that is syntenic to positional candidate loci for familial Alzheimer's disease type 5 and Parkinson's disease 8 on human chromosome 12.