What is fatal family insomnia?
Fatal familial insomnia (FFI) is an extremely rare degenerative cerebral disease that seems to be a genetic nature. This disease seems to be present in less than 30 families around the world, although other studies and genetic analysis can detect more families that are susceptible to it. Currently, there is no remedy for fatal familial insomnia, although doctors work on experimental treatments; Most doctors believe that the best hopes for treatment are gene therapy. The prias lack genetic material, reproducing the strange folding behavior that causes the proteins around them mutating them. In the case of fatal familial insomnia, patients who inherit the dominant gene that causes a condition begin to show symptoms between the age of 30 and 60, because the prions attack thalamus, part of the brain that is responsible for sleep.
The first sign of fafamiliary insomnia is the inability to sleep, which is often associated with panic attacks and hallucinations. As the patient continues after thatDays and months without sleep, tend to lose weight and dive into dementia when more and more brain is harmful. In the end, the patient turns to the catatonic and completely unreacted before death.
The first cases of fatal familial insomnia were identified by Italian physician Ignazio Roiter. Unfortunately for Roiter, these cases were very close to home and appeared among the members of his wife's family. When researching Roiter's sleep, he never met anything like this condition, and he suspected it could be a completely new disease. When the brain of one of the patients was drinking, he revealed characteristic plaques and fears of prion disease, which confirmed its suspicion.
Sleep is very important for human recovery, although doctors are not sure why. Anyone who has ever experienced a short time of insomnia knows that it can make it difficult to think except that it is stunning and sometimes causes strange neurologicalínaky. In the deadly family insomnia of the victim, they not only experience a period of insomnia: one day they wake up and will never sleep again.