Tag Archives: parkinson’s

Brain Facts: Neurodegenerative Diseases

Leave a comment

Published by the Society for Neuroscience and overseen by an editorial board of leading neuroscientists from around the world, BrainFacts.org shares the stories of scientific discovery and the knowledge they reveal.

Relaunched in the fall of 2017, the site affirms its continued commitment to neuroscience literacy and outreach to the public. The corresponding book has also seen a recent relaunch.

Brain Facts recognition page
Brain Facts recognition page. Credit: Society for Neuroscience

I had the pleasure and privilege of writing Chapter 15: Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Untangling fibril formation and dissociation in Parkinson’s disease

Leave a comment

Prions are a type of protein gone wrong. The complex three-dimensional structure of a prion’s progenitor protein has been altered, somehow causing it to no longer function as expected. Worse, the malformation of these progenitor proteins into prions causes them to aggregate into amyloid plaques that can result in a disease state. Prions are responsible for an odd sort of protein-caused infectious neurodegenerative diseases like Mad Cow disease and scrapie in livestock.

Read more here.