Creutzfeldt-Cattle Disease Study

Classic CJD Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a human prion disease. This disease is very progressive and always fatal. Infection with this disease leads to death usually within 1 year of illness. This fatal disorder is believed to be caused by an abnormal isoform of a cellular glycoprotein known as the prion protein. CJD occurs worldwide and the estimated incidence in many countries, including the United States,.CJD is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) along with other Prion diseases that occur in humans and animals. In about 85% of patients, CJD occurs as a Irregular disease with no recognizable pattern of transmission. A smaller part of patients (5 to 15%) develop CJD because of inherited mutations of the prion protein gene. These inherited forms include Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome and fatal insomnia. In most CJD patients, the presence of 14-3-3 protein in the cerebrospinal fluid and/or a typical (EEG) pattern, both of which are believed to be diagnostic for CJD .A conformed diagnosis of CJD requires neuropathology or immunodiagnostic testing of brain tissue obtained either at biopsy or autopsy.

Humans have to deal with many different diseases and the ones most disliked are the ones with no cures. Like cancer, transmissible spongiform encephalopathies have no cure, but they are more rare. These diseases are prion diseases which cause the brain to deteriorate. Prions are proteins that sometimes behave like viruses, which mean that they should have some form of nucleic acid, but since they don’t, they cause abnormalities. The nervous system contains many normal prions, but when an abnormal prion comes along, it transforms all the normal prions into abnormal ones. Bovine spongiform encephalopathy is found in cattle, but it can be transmitted to humans.

Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD) is a rapidly progressive form of Dementia. Early diagnosis is important because the underlying cause of Dementia may be treatable. It appears randomly with no apparent reason, about 10% of those who are infected receive the disease through heredity. The use of a computerized axial tomography scan (CT) can help rule out other problems like stroke or brain tumor. The most effective is a Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), because it can reveal patterns of abnormal brain signals and characteristics of CJD. In rare cases a brain biopsy may need to be performed. A small piece of tissue is removed and it is examined by a Neuropathologist, usually an MRI is sufficient. When a symptom on set happens, individuals may develop confusion, depression, behavioral changes, impaired vision and impaired coordination. As the disease processes there may be a loss of memory, also infected individuals may develop neuromuscular abnormalities. In later stages of the disease, individuals may have further loss of physical, intellectual functions, a coma, and repeated infections of the respiratory tract. Some people have life threatening and life ending complications, that develop less than a year after being

In 1906, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, noticed some changes in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness. Her symptoms were comprised of memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior. After her death, Dr. Alzheimer examined her brain and found many abnormal clumps (amyloid plaques) and tangled bundles of

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) is a mad cow human disease which is believed to be caused by eating beef products contaminated with central nervous system tissue, such as brain and spinal cord, from cattle infected with mad cow disease. For this reason, the many

Maxime Schwartz’s novel, How the Cows Turned Mad: Unlocking the Mysteries of Mad Cow Disease, is written for those interested in the history and how a disease slowly changed over time to become what it is today. This novel, although considered academic writing, cater to any type of reader. While a slight background of general biology is recommended, Schwartz does an amazing job in describing each scenario to the point in which many people can understand. Even with the academic diction, this novel is easy to follow and makes a very interesting story nonetheless. This story engages the readers with stories of the past and the present in regards to mad cows disease.

In Seeds of Dementia, the authors, Larry C. Walker and Mathias Jucker, explain the ongoing search to understand more about dementia. The authors first credit the new way of thinking about dementia to the discovery of prions, which helped to confirm that dementia is transferrable through the sharing of brain matter. Prions, as proposed by Stanley B. Prusiner, are “proteins that [can] transmit disease”, and from this discovery comes the idea that we could “soon unify our thinking about how...diseases arise”. To further study the effect of prions on the brain, scientists injected Aβ plaques into mice to “determine whether extracts of brain tissue would initiate Aβ aggregation in the brains of mice”, and after experiencing positive results, the

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy “is a progressive neurological disorder of cattle that results from infection by an unusual transmissible agent called a prion”. (Center for Disease Control & Prevention, 2015).

This disease gets its name from the German neurologist Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt and Alfons Maria Jakob that first identified this disease. (Victor, 2015) VCJD is primarily found in the brain of the cattle. Abnormal proteins called prions have thought to be the cause of this disease in both cattle and in humans. These prions cause tiny holes that look like a sponge under a microscope. (Melissa Conrad Stöppler, 2015) Unlike most viruses and bacteria these prions unfortunately do not die when exposed to heat, ultraviolet light, and radiation. Disinfectants that are usually used to kill viruses and bacteria also do not work to kill prions. Even cooking the meat very well will not lower the risk of prions in the

Proteinaceous Infectious Particles, commonly known as Prions, are extremely rare misfolds of the protein PrPc, which cause fatally neurodegenerative diseases, and are theorized to be infectious only by the protein itself (U.S National Library of Medicine, 1998). This “protein-only theory” is still heavily debated today, as some scientists deny the theory, and there isn’t a significant amount of evidence on each side to qualify the theory or disprove it (Soto, C. 2011). The base “Prion” protein is encoded in the gene PRNP, while being non-infectious. Prions are most commonly found in human prion diseases, but they can also be in other animals in the form of Mad Cow Disease and Chronic Wasting Disease, classified as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathies

It is a rare, degenerative but fatal brain disorder affecting very a small fraction of persons. The symptoms usually arise at the age of 60 and the person dies within a year. Many researchers believe that this disorder is the result of an abnormal protein known as prion. About 5-10% cases reported in the United States share a genetic basis where this form of dementia is caused by a mutation in the gene for the prion protein. Patients with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease suffer from the problems associated with muscle coordination, personality changes, impaired memory, judgment making, thinking disability and impaired vision. Other possible symptoms include insomnia and depression. In later stages the persons

Creutzfeldt - Jakob disease is a prion disease characterized by the degeneration of the cerebral cortex, basal ganglia, cerebellum, brainstem and spinal cord. CJD is classified into 4 types: sporadic, familial, iatrogenic, and contaminated meat. CJD represents approximately 85% of all human prion diseases . Although it is common in older ages (50-70), both men and women have an equal chance of acquiring the disease. Recently, there has been a new variant CJD that is thought to be from the ingestion of cattle products in Great Britain. The central characteristic that differentiates vCJD and CJD is that it occurs more commonly in younger people and also has different pathogenic findings. The second variant form is the panencephalopathic form, which is found in Japan.

In, “Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease with unusual initial presentation as posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome: a case report”, a study was conducted to show the relationship between Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CRD) and posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES). CRD is an aggressive neurodegenerative prion disease that leads to dementia and later death. The patient in this case study was a 53 year old woman with no prior neurological health conditions. There were no previous family members that had dementia. The patient was treated with sudden blurred vision, dizziness, disturbed gait and coordination impairment. Two weeks after the patient complained of those symptoms, the patient was admitted to the Department of Neurology

In the early 1900s, Alois Alzheimer looked at abnormal plaques in the brain. This was the first recorded case of the possible disease. In the century that followed, scientists have made many more discoveries about Alzheimer's disease and dementia. Unfortunately, not all is known, and there is a lot of research to go before researchers find possible cures for the illnesses.

Alzheimer is a disease that affects the elderly most. The disease was discovered by Dr. Alois Alzheimer in the year 1906 when he was examining a female’s brain. He found out that the woman displayed memory loss, language problems and some inexplicable changes in behavior. The disease was named after the doctor who was a German psychiatrist and a neuropathologist. Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain disorder that leads to memory loss, personality changes, and language problems (Gilbert & Julie 2). The disease is mostly diagnosed in people over the age of 65 years, though there is a small minority of people under the age of 50 who get the disease. Studies show that 1% of a whole population aged between the ages 65-75 have severe