> it’s almost certainly not, or you would see epidemiological evidence for chains of transmission. prion diseases require contact transmission which is all but absent from the alzheimer’s story.
I think what the parent comment is saying is, what if it isn't transmitted, what if a prion is just occurring in the brains of the people who develop alzheimers?
That seems unlikely to me, but on the other hand, the article seems to be suggesting that transferring brain proteins from people with alzheimers to people who are younger will cause them to develop alzheimers which would be roughly consistent with that.
I don't know whether that would be possible, but, for example, what if there was somehow a specific protein in the brain that could easily be misfolded to become a prion, and the eventually if people live long enough they tend to produce that prion at least once, so it occurs essentially as a result of old age, but it can theoretically also be transmitted in the manner described in the article?
I think what the parent comment is saying is, what if it isn't transmitted, what if a prion is just occurring in the brains of the people who develop alzheimers?
That seems unlikely to me, but on the other hand, the article seems to be suggesting that transferring brain proteins from people with alzheimers to people who are younger will cause them to develop alzheimers which would be roughly consistent with that.
I don't know whether that would be possible, but, for example, what if there was somehow a specific protein in the brain that could easily be misfolded to become a prion, and the eventually if people live long enough they tend to produce that prion at least once, so it occurs essentially as a result of old age, but it can theoretically also be transmitted in the manner described in the article?