4 ms·
A few questions: * Do we have a good grasp on the number of prions in the world? My recollection from when MadCow became a big thing in the late 90s was that
by ergothus 8y ago
A few questions:
* Do we have a good grasp on the number of prions in the world? My recollection from when MadCow became a big thing in the late 90s was that prions weren't even looked for and were hard to find as a general rule, but that was 20+ years ago. Might there be many common-but-harmless prions that we haven't even noticed?
* WHY is brain consumption (both in humans and in animals) such a source of prions? What makes that situation more likely to create prions?
- OldFatCactus 8y agoI am not a doctor or scientist. From what I remember on the topic, we do not have a good grasp on prions disease. There is a good chance that some other diseases in history may have actually been misdiagnosed prions disease. It can present as a form of dementia and the incubation period can be so long that many people are middle-aged before symptoms occur. Tissue of the brain and spine are better for Prions propagation. Prions cause other proteins to misfold themselves. The proteins they affect are related to brain matter.
- Chris_Chambers 8y agoAcross all species, the brain has universally been sandboxed from the rest of the body for millions of years. It has had plenty of time to evolve traits that are only beneficial in an all-neuron environment, with minimal regard for how those traits would damage other types of cells. Maybe prion behavior that seems destructive outside of the brain is actually a normal part of the long term memory formation process.
- subroutine 8y agoGet this... there is only one (1) prion protein! All mammalian prion diseases are directly related to the PRNP gene. People talk about Mad Cow, Kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jacobs, Chronic Wasting Disease, Scrapie, and a dozen other diseases like they are not all manifestations of the same underlying problem with PRNP gene variants.