What is the name of the rare prion disease that occurs in humans?
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
100
What is the name of the TSE disease that devastates sheep?
Scrapie
100
What are the two names for the TSE disease that affects beef cattle?
Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) and Mad cow disease
100
What is the name of the TSE disease that affects members of the deer family?
Chronic Wasting Disease
100
What is a Prion?
A mutated protein that is predicted to cause TSE diseases.
200
Name at least three symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Blindness, dementia, involuntary muscle spasms, paralysis, and coma.
200
Name at least three symptoms of Scrapie
Pulling out of wool, weight loss, hopping with the back legs, high stepping gait with the front legs, tremors, and sensitivity to light and sound.
200
Name one symptom of BSE.
Loss of coordination, nervousness, aggressiveness.
200
Name at least three symptoms of CWD.
Weight loss, excessive salivation and urination, decrease in social interactions, nervous behavior, and repetitive walking patterns.
200
What is the body system most impacted by the TSE diseases?
The central nervous system.
300
What is the one of the most recent hypothesis of how CJD is transferred?
CJD can be spread through transplants of brain matter, blood, bodily fluids, and adjacent brain tissues from an infected person to a healthy person.
300
What is the one of the most recent hypothesis of how scrapie is transferred?
Through passing down of a genetic defect
300
What is the one of the most recent hypothesis of how BSE is transferred?
BSE is transmissible orally from cow to cow and can transfer to humans by eating infected meat.
300
What is the one of the most recent hypothesis of how CWD is transferred?
Through shedding, saliva, urine and by carcasses of animals who had CWD in contact with deer who were healthy.
300
Not currently, but there are rumors of a vaccine in process.
Is there a cure for TSE diseases?
400
What is one way to help prevent CJD from spreading?
One way to help decrease the spread of CJD would be to test for the gene that will cause the disease later in life. Another would be to quarantine the infected person. Disposing of the infected corpse correctly is also crucial. Through understanding and further research CJD could be stopped from spreading.
400
How do we prevent Scrapie from appearing in later generations?
Closely monitoring the animals for signs of infection, testing before crossing state lines and before market, and elimination the sheep that contain the Scrapie gene.
400
How do we prevent BSE from spreading?
A long term solution to eliminating BSE would be to breed a tolerance into the cattle heritage lines. A rumored way the disease can be eliminated is through a safely administered vaccine.
400
How do we prevent CWD from spreading?
There is no logical way CWD can be eliminated from the deer populations in America, but through surveillance of the infectious deer and research there would be a better understanding of how the disease can be eliminated.
400
What is the currently accepted ways that a TSE disease spreads?
By the host animals- usually through the shedding of skin, contact of infected bodily fluids, and contact of brain matter.
500
CJD appeared as a mutation from consuming infected meat.
What is most common hypothesis of how CJD first appeared?
500
Through feeding of animal protein derived from ruminants in the 1980's in Britain. It is believed that when the sheep carcass material changed from high to low temperature, it mutated the proteins, causing the disease.
What is most common hypothesis of how Scrapie caused BSE?
500
What did Great Brittan invent due to BSE to assess the qualitative likelihood that BSE could be present in a country where it was not yet officially recognized?
The European Geographical BSE Risk Assessment (GBR)
500
In the state of Wyoming, what was one preventive measure taken in 2003-2010 that provided statistical answers to CWD rates?
In southeast Wyoming Todd Cornish and his crew captured, tested, and released deer from surrounding herds. These deer were then annually tested for CWD and pregnancy status.
500
What is the name of the TSE disease that is zoonotic? *hint there is only one
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or Mad Cow Disease