One of the strangest things that can sicken us—a rogue misfolded protein that destroys the brain, known as a prion—is even scarier than we knew. Researchers were able to find the prions responsible for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), the most common prion disease in people, seeded everywhere in the eyes of 11 patients affected by it.
The findings are the latest to suggest that these universally fatal, if rare, diseases can be spread through the eyes. But they also indicate that our eyes might be someday be used to spot these cases with less hassle than current testing methods.
Read more
Comments are closed.