Are Prions behind All Neurodegenerative Diseases?

[Maria]

In the human form of mad cow disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob, a person's brain deteriorates—literally developing holes that cause rapidly progressing dementia. The condition is fatal within one year in 90 percent of cases. The culprits behind the disease are prions—misfolded proteins that can induce normal proteins around them to also misfold and accumulate. Scientists have known that these self-propagating, pathological proteins cause some rare brain disorders, such as kuru in Papua New Guinea. But growing evidence suggests that prions are at play in many, if not all, neurodegenerative disorders, including Alzheimer's, Huntington's and Parkinson's, also marked by aggregations of malformed proteins.
To read the article, visit: http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... -diseases/

[Maria]

This Scientific American article also states that Alzheimer's may be transmitted through transfusions or cannibalism.