VIRAL DEGENERATIVE AND DEMENTING DISEASES IN AGING

退行性疾病的发生随着年龄的增长而增加。 变性 中枢神经系统（CNS）使患者遭受老年前期或 老年痴呆症 虽然大多数形式的痴呆症的病因仍然存在 模糊，痴呆症患者的数量正在逐步增加， 老年人在我国人口中所占比例继续增加。 为了更好地了解这些年龄依赖性退行性疾病， 我们计划将研究重点放在CNS的病毒变性上。 的 由羊瘙痒病和克雅氏病引起的中枢神经系统的急剧退化 疾病（CJD）的慢传播因子使它们成为研究的极好模型 退化性疾病 在这个程序应用中，我们提出了纯化和 羊瘙痒病病原体的表征研究，生物学和 CJD因子的生化特性，组织培养系统的开发 用于传播CJD因子和研究发病机理， 实验性CJD的超微结构形态。 我们的研究工作将 对老年患者的诊断、治疗和可能的治疗具有重要意义 以及定义一类新的痴呆症的不寻常特性， 微生物，具有数十年的潜伏期，能够 导致中枢神经系统严重退化

The occurrence of degenerative diseases increases with aging. Degeneration of the central nervous system (CNS) leaves patients devastated with presenile or senile forms of dementia. While the etiologies of most forms of dementia remain obscure, the number of demented patients is progressively increasing as the proportion of our population comprised of older people continues to grow. Toward gaining a better understanding of these age-dependent degenerative changes, we plan to focus our research on viral degenerations of the CNS. The dramatic degeneration of the CNS produced by the scrapie and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) slow transmissible agents make them excellent models for studying degenerative diseases. In this program application we propose purification and characterization studies of the scrapie agent, studies on the biological and biochemical properties of the CJD agent, development of tissue culture systems for propagation of the CJD agent and studies of the pathogenesis and ultrastructural morphology of experimental CJD. Our research efforts will be of significance in the diagnosis, cure and possibly treatment of older patients with dementia as well as in defining the unusual properties of a novel class of microorganisms, having incubation periods measured in decades and capable of causing profound degeneration of the CNS.