Tam Thanh Nguyen Tran Introduction: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease is a rare (1-1.5 cases per million worldwide), rapidly progressive, and inevitably fatal neurodegenerative prion disease involving abnormal protein aggregates that cause brain tissue deterioration (1,2).  The normal prion protein PrPC (cellular) is mutated to the infectious form PrPSc (prototypical prion disease–scrapie) that…

Mario Tovar Introduction. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a neurodegenerative disease characterized by progressive corticospinal motor neuron degeneration resulting in death due to respiratory failure within 2-5 years from diagnosis (1,2).  ALS has a mean onset age of 55 years old with documented cases as early as the first and…

Jey Thiruma Introduction. Alcohol use during pregnancy causes Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), the most severe and visibly identifiable form of the fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. Alcohol is a teratogen, which means that it can easily cross the placenta, and affect the brain and other vital organs of the fetus (1).…

Jaqueline Stoutin Introduction. FTLD is a clinically heterogenous disease most often presenting with social disinhibition and apathy (1-5). FTLD is the second leading cause of early-onset dementia after Alzheimer’s Disease. There is currently no treatment for FTLD (1-4). In cases of PGRN haploinsufficiency, there is widespread lysosomal dysregulation: in microglia,…