@drbenmiles · Dr Ben Miles
Saved 2026-05-15 · Posted 2025-08-31 · Status: New
The True Story of the Family That Forgot How to Sleep
In the 1980s, one Italian family began losing the ability to sleep - not from insomnia, but from a rare and fatal genetic mutation - Fatal Familial Insomnia.
#siwtd #scientificallyinterestingwaystodie #science #explore #explorepage
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Comments (15)
IIRC prions are the reason why it's dangerous to eat human brains. A just vengeance of nature if you partake in something like cannibalism.
God damn bro I just woke up
Wow so fascinating. And this is officially my greatest fear on this entire planet!
I learned about prions in my first year of nursing and it is one scary unpredictable bugger. I ended up as a surgical nurse in the OR and we again learned about Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. When having any brain surgery there is a specific questionnaire that every patients must complete. There's is a major protocol Neuro Surgeons and Surgical Nurses must follow. If there is ANY uncertainty everything used is removed from the room. Complete PPE is put on and only the people necessary for the surgery are allowed in the room. All disposable instruments and items used or unused are packaged in multiple biohazard bags and then in a container. This is sent for disposal. It's pretty scary when we hear that a patient is suspected of having CJD after the surgery was done! The patient was a trauma and was unable to answer the questionnaire. Thankfully, the brain tissue was negative!
So what happens if you administer a strong sedative to such a patient?
Fantastic content to find while awake at 7am on Sunday because your sleep schedule is busted 👍
Prions can be passed to another patient through contaminated surgical instruments???
They was recently an influencer from Indonesia, i think was he, who recorded on live streaming hid struggle until his death - because there isn’t yet cure 😢
Can this now be fixed using CRISPR-Cas9?
No cure is horrible! Has a way been found to kill prions outside of the body yet?
What mechanism triggers other (already expressed) proteins to misfold, too? Where's the interaction? :)
There is also another prion disease in humans called Kuru which is seen in the tribal people of papua new guinea, these tribal people have a custom where when a chief dies the new chief will eat the old chief's brain to get his knowledge( some believes ) it is even done when relatives of a family dies. It's a fatal disease the prion will attack the Central nerves system and it damages the brain by interacting and changing the brain structure leading to so many symptoms like loss of motor function that leads to death
Does anyone remember Mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy)?
I can't go to sleep unless I have caffeine in my system. Everybody takes caffeine to stay awake I take caffeine to go to sleep. My doctor said I have severe ADHD to the point that I have to take some sort of stimulant so that my brain stops working for a few seconds and lets me go to sleep. So parents, give your kids their ADHD pills, don't let them grow up like me and suffer for the rest of their lives.
Thank Gd for sleep. I need more of it