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Asked by archie liddington to Kylie, Matt, Bex, RobB, Sam on 12 Jun 2016.
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Sam Briggs answered on 12 Jun 2016:
Hi 964cesf27,
Good question and not my field but I’ll give it a whirl, someone else might be able to do a lot better.
I think a lot of brain disease is congenital, in effect, they have genes that mean that at a certain point in that persons life their cells will switch into a mode that produces that disease.
However, there are also environmental factors, I think some meats when not cooked properly carry something called prions, which I am led to believe are a type of cell that trigger something or indeed cause brain disease.
Hope that helps?
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Matt Dunn answered on 13 Jun 2016:
Hi Archie,
Brain scientist here! There are many, many types of brain disease, and so there are many, many ways to get them! Here’s a short list:
– Genetics: For some diseases, if your parents have it, you have a risk of getting the disease too, as you share the genetics of your parents. This is difficult to prevent as you basically some with the disease ‘built-in’, but with gene therapy it can sometimes be dealt with (for example, most brain cancers are caused by genetic mutations in brain cells)
– Trauma: If you hit your head hard enough or damage your spine, you can cause permanent damage which results in disease (for example, if you bleed inside your brain it can cause a stroke)
– Infection: Some viruses, bacteria or fungi can affect the brain, damaging different parts of it and causing a disease (such as meningitis)
– Degeneration: Sometimes cells in your brain simply die and we don’t know why (this is the area I am gathering more data for), such as Parkinson’s and Huntington’s. This is often the worst as the disease slowly gets more and more serious as time goes on.But to summarise, there are so many diseases that there are many ways to get them! However, you shouldn’t worry, as most of these diseases only affect a few people in a thousand.
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