Down syndrome, like Alzheimer’s, is a double-prion disorder

The brains of people with Down syndrome develop the same neurodegenerative tangles and plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease and frequently demonstrate signs of the neurodegenerative disorder in their forties or fifties. A new study from researchers at UC San Francisco shows that these tangles and plaques are driven by the same amyloid beta (Aß) and tau prions that they showed are behind Alzheimer’s disease in 2019.