Lancet neurology
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Studies in experimental animals show transmissibility of amyloidogenic proteins associated with prion diseases, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other neurodegenerative diseases. Although these data raise potential concerns for public health, convincing evidence for human iatrogenic transmission only exists for prions and amyloid β after systemic injections of contaminated growth hormone extracts or dura mater grafts derived from cadavers. ⋯ Cerebral amyloid angiopathy can cause life-threatening brain haemorrhages; yet, there is no proof that the transmission of amyloid β can also lead to Alzheimer's dementia. Large, long-term epidemiological studies and sensitive, cost-efficient tools to detect amyloid are needed to better understand any potential routes of amyloid β transmission and to clarify whether other similar proteopathic seeds, such as tau or α-synuclein, can also be transferred iatrogenically.
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Observational Study
Neurological disease in adults with Zika and chikungunya virus infection in Northeast Brazil: a prospective observational study.
Since 2015, the arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses) Zika and chikungunya have spread across the Americas causing outbreaks, accompanied by increases in immune-mediated and infectious neurological disease. The spectrum of neurological manifestations linked to these viruses, and the importance of dual infection, are not known fully. We aimed to investigate whether neurological presentations differed according to the infecting arbovirus, and whether patients with dual infection had a different disease spectrum or severity. ⋯ For the Portuguese and Spanish translations of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.
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Human prion diseases are rare and usually rapidly fatal neurodegenerative disorders, the most common being sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD). Variants in the PRNP gene that encodes prion protein are strong risk factors for sCJD but, although the condition has similar heritability to other neurodegenerative disorders, no other genetic risk loci have been confirmed. We aimed to discover new genetic risk factors for sCJD, and their causal mechanisms. ⋯ Medical Research Council and the UK National Institute of Health Research in part through the Biomedical Research Centre at University College London Hospitals National Health Service Foundation Trust.