Quote:
Originally Posted by headquarters
a rump steak or filet of breast is OK , but once you start getting into brains and marrow you can get the tell tale shaking hands ?
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It's possible to get spongiform encephalopathy from the meat of an infected creature, but in a human, most prions appear to be concentrated in the brain. I did some further Googling, and it appears that if they're your own prions, you don't get spongiform encephalopathy, but prions from somewhere else can cause spongiform encephalopathy. It is hypothesized that prions from somewhere else cause an immune system reaction, causing the proteins already in your brain to fold into a shape that kills cells and neurons. But scientists don't really know for sure what the mechanism is that causes spongiform encephalopathy.
(My previous psychiatrist, Dr Aneta Schunemeyer, told me once that scientists and doctors understand less than 20% of how the brain actually works -- and most of that understanding is rough and sketchy. She told me that psychiatry and neurology are more like arts than sciences.)
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