Transmissible Spongiform Encepalopathies

Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE)          

Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies, TSE, is a neurological condition that, in a nutshell, eats holes in the brain.TSE is a prion disease that gives the brain a “spongy” appearance. You can see the holes in the brain tissue when you look at it from under a microscope. The most common form of TSE that is found in humans is Cruetzfield-Jakobs Disease (CJD). It is very rare, so rare in fact, that it infects only one in a million people each year. But, like any other disease, there are other forms of it that exist. A couple of the other forms of TSE are Kuru, fatal familial insomnia (FFI), and Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease (GSS). FFI is one of the rarest diseases known today. It is so extremely rare, that of 6/6/10, only 3 families worldwide are diagnosed with it today. It will still be with us until we find a cure for it, because it is 100% hereditary. There is a new type of CJD called variant Cruetzfield-Jakobs Disease (vCJD).  It was only recently discovered 1996. It affects mostly people in Britain and Europe. The symptoms of vCJD are very different CJD and are more likely to be found in younger patients than older ones. Scientists say that vCJD comes from when people consume beef that came from a cow that had a version of TSE called bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE. This is more widely known as “mad cow disease”.  There are other TSEs’ that are found in animals like scrapie, that effects sheep and goats, chronic wasting disease, which effects elk and deer. Elk and deer are also prone to get a type of TSE called transmissible mink encephalopathy. Sometimes there are cases of TSE in zoo animals. This is incredibly rare. The only logical answer for this is infected feed.TSE and CJD’s can also be transmitted into rats and mice for experimental and studious reasons in labs.

TSE caused by a strange type of prion-prion is short for proteinaceous infectious particle- found in the body. Prions are completely normal. They are found in your cells. It’s the out of wack, genetically incorrect prions that cause the infection. Nobody knows why that happens, but we just know that when it does, it’s surprising and rare.

Human TSE can only be transferred three ways:

1.Sporadically

2.Hereditarily

3.Transmission from an individual who was infected.







If you would like to know more about TSE and its variations, comment it and I will post another article with more info!