Studying the changes in the brain long before the symptoms arise can be extremely helpful in the early detection and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Prions are infectious, misfolded proteins that can cause neurological disorders by affecting specific regions and cells of the brain. This phenomenon is called “selective vulnerability,” which also plays a role in other neurodegenerative disorders .
Swedish researchers studied selective vulnerability by observing how different cell types react when infected with prions in the case of two genetic prion diseases – fatal familial insomnia (FFI) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD). In spite of having different symptoms in their later stages, the researchers found similarities in the early stages of both diseases, before symptoms appear. They measured translational responses of five neuronal subtypes to acquired prion disease (PrD) in…
