Fred's tutorial

Question 1

Number of patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders in the US (out of 275*10^6)

Answer 1

• AD - 4*10^6
• Parkinson’s - 1*10^6
• Diffuse Lewy body Disease - 3*10^5
• Frontal Temporal Dementia - 10^5
  …
  …

Question 2

Average number of synapses per neuron and in the whole brain:

Answer 2

• 2500 per neuron; ca 10^15 in the whole brain

Question 3

Number of different nerve cell types:

Answer 3

• 1000 - 10 000

Question 4

Main symptoms of Parkinson’s

Answer 4

• hypokinesia

- rigidity in combination with tremors

Question 5

Other types of Parkinsonism:

Answer 5

• Lewy body disease
• Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP)
• Multiple system atrophy (MSA)

Question 6

Main symptoms of Huntington’s

Answer 6

• clumsiness
• jaw clenching
• loss of coordination and balance
• slurred speech
• swallowing and/or eating difficulty
• dystonia - uncontrolled continual muscular contractions
  (incidence in NL - ca. 1500 patients)

Question 7

Number of genes in the human genome (…in rice?)

Answer 7

ca. 25 000 (in rice - ca. 50 000)

Question 8

What is chorea?

Answer 8

• involuntary, rapid, ceaseless movement

Question 9

Huntingtin protein gene features:

Answer 9

• in HD (a polyglutamine disorder) the triplet CAG (coding for glutamine) is repeated as expansion in exon 1 of Huntingtin, located on chromosome 4. It is autosomal dominant…

Question 10

Pathological features of Huntington’s

Answer 10

• aggregation of Huntingtin and Ub in intranuclear occlusions
• atrophy of the caudate, putamen, and the cortex