Prime of Life Brain Disease

Neurodegeneration is not just a disease that strikes the elderly. There is a spectrum of brain diseases that often onset in the 50’s and 60’s when people may have family responsibilities, careers and active lives. Half of all neurodegeneration under age 65 involves these diseases (NIH).

What is a Tauopathy?

PSP, CBD, and several other diseases, including Alzheimer’s, are considered tauopathies. This is because the neurodegenerative symptoms are due to the abnormal misfolding and clumping of the tau protein within neurons, which causes progressive cell death. 

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP)

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is a neurodegenerative disease that has no known cause, treatment or cure. It affects nerve cells that control walking, balance, mobility, vision, speech and swallowing. Five to six people per 100,000 will develop PSP.

Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD)

Corticobasal degeneration (CBD) is a neurodegenerative disease that has no known cause, treatment or cure. It affects nerve cells that control walking, balance, mobility, vision, speech and swallowing.

Multiple system atrophy (MSA) with postural hypotension, also called Shy-Drager syndrome, is a progressive disorder of the central and sympathetic nervous systems.

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is a disease process that results in progressive damage to the temporal and/or frontal lobes of the brain. It causes a group of brain disorders that share many clinical features.

The condition known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) was formerly believed to exist primarily among boxers, and was referred to as dementia pugilistica.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord.  It is the best-known of a complex of conditions known as motor neuron diseases.

We welcome your questions so that we can share answers with others. If one of your questions is not answered here, please submit through info@curepsp.org and we will attempt to provide an answer and may include it in this section for the benefit of others.