“According to findings published June 15 in the journal JCI Insight, Duke researchers and collaborators from the University of California, San Francisco, hypothesize that an agent in the gut might interfere with alpha-synuclein in gut endocrine cells, deforming the protein. The deformed or misfolded protein might then spread via the nervous system to the brain as a prion, or infectious protein, in similar fashion to mad cow disease.”
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