Neurodegenerative diseases
Neurodegenerative diseases are a heterogeneous group of disorders that occur when neurons in the brain or peripheral nervous system progressively lose their function and structure, or even they die.
Depending on which area of the brain is affected, the symptoms vary and lead to different types of neurodegenerative diseases.
The most common neurodegenerative disorders are:
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Alzheimer’s disease
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Parkinson’s disease
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Huntington’s disease
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Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
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Currently, neurodegenerative disorders affect around 180 million of Europeans, and it is believed that 1 of 3 will be diagnosed with one of these disorders during their lifetime. As a consequence, treating neurodegenerative disorders represent an enormous social impact and economic healthcare burden with an annual cost of 798 billion €. This global health crisis the biggest risk factor for developing these diseases. However, other genetic and environmental factors also contribute, such as Huntington’s disease, with a strong genetic component that can also affect.
There are no treatment or drug to prevent or cure them. In fact, the available treatments only slow down their progression or reduce the symptomatology of the patients. Despite global efforts, all conventional approaches have failed to stop disease progression. One of the reason why the rate of failure on the clinical trials is related to the neuronal degeneration is already in advanced stage when symptoms appear in patients, and hence, neuronal functionality cannot be restored.