Scientists develop test for uncommon brain diseases

NIH scientists develop test for uncommon brain diseases
Representative negative-stained transmission electron microscopy images of 4R RT-QuIC products seeded with brain homogenates from individuals with the designated diseases – frontotemporal dementia and Parkinsonism linked to chromosome 17; corticobasal degeneration; and progressive supranuclear palsy. Credit: NIAID

National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists have developed an ultrasensitive new test to detect abnormal forms of the protein tau associated with uncommon types of neurodegenerative diseases called tauopathies. As they describe in Acta Neuropathologica, this advance gives them hope of using cerebrospinal fluid, or CSF—an accessible patient sample—to diagnose these and perhaps other, more common neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

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