News Neuroscience

Misfolded proteins implicated in more brain diseases

Alzheimer’s, other disorders show similarity to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other prion infections

Amyloid-beta in the brain

BUILDUP  Amyloid-beta (brown) accumulated in the front of the brain in a person who received injections of cadaver-derived growth hormone as a child, suggesting that the injections were contaminated with A-beta. 

Z. Jaunmuktane et al/Nature 2015

By Laura Sanders

In some brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, distorted proteins behave like infectious agents, spreading among brain cells and corrupting other proteins.