Researchers model how toxic proteins course through the brain, lead to disease
(PHYSorg.com Physics)

Many neurodegenerative diseases spread by hijacking the brain`s connective circuitry to transport toxic proteins, which gradually accumulate and trigger symptoms of dementias. Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology and colleagues have modeled how these toxic proteins spread throughout the brain to reproduce the telltale patterns of atrophy associated with Alzheimer`s disease, Parkinson`s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.