Ricki Lewis | Jul 22, 2001 | 7 min read
Prion disorders riddle the mammalian brain with plaque and holes, the precise pattern and resulting symptoms--dementia, extreme fatigue, or loss of balance--depending on whether one is human, bovine, or ovine. The agent of such a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) is an infectious form of prion protein, called PrP scrapie (PrPSc), named after the long-known sheep illness. In bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and its human version, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vC