I understand that prions are folded proteins that cause infectious diseases in the brains of mammals.
**Some questions on top of the **
1. So don’t eat mammal brains in case of prions – does this mean all mammals have prions in their brains?
2. If I ate a mammal brain and got a prion disease, is it possible that that mammal doesn’t have the disease?
3. Is it the prions themselves that are infectious, or the diseases they cause that are?
4. How do the prions cause the diseases?
In: Biology
Some information for you, probably not complete answers but it’s a start:
> If I ate a mammal brain and got a prion disease, is it possible that that mammal doesn’t have the disease?
It’s possible (probable) that the mammal wasn’t showing symptoms yet when it was slaughtered. If it had been, it probably wouldn’t have been able to be used for meat anyway. Prion diseases tend to have very long incubation periods.
> Is it the prions themselves that are infectious, or the diseases they cause that are?
The disease. That’s less about prions and more about what “infectious” means in general.
> How do the prions cause the diseases?
Prions are able to convert “properly” folded proteins into improperly folded ones. As I understand it, we don’t really know how or why this happens.
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