News Finding: The study showed that in animals that had previously been infected with a gut worm, the spread of the prions to the brain was reduced, delaying the onset of disease.
Paper Finding: Since the lambs in the above study 65 were co-infected with T. circumcincta long after prion neuroinvasion from the intestine is likely to have occurred 62 , the reduced survival times are unlikely to be a consequence of effects of the parasite infection on the uptake or accumulation of the prions within the GALT.
News Context: The study shows how the progression of prion diseases to the brain is slowed if animals have previously been infected with a gut worm. The study showed that in animals that had previously been infected with a gut worm, the spread of the prions to the brain was reduced, delaying the onset of disease. The team observed that previous infection with a gut worm reduced this accumulation, hindering the ability of the prions to then spread to the brain where they cause damage to nerve cells.
Paper Context: Treatments that can delay the accumulation of prions in the GALT do not influence disease pathogenesis once neuroinvasion has occurred and the prions have established infection in the peripheral nervous system 5 . Since the lambs in the above study 65 were co-infected with T. circumcincta long after prion neuroinvasion from the intestine is likely to have occurred 62 , the reduced survival times are unlikely to be a consequence of effects of the parasite infection on the uptake or accumulation of the prions within the GALT. However, it is plausible that the parasite-mediated damage to the abomasum stimulated the systemic release of inflammatory mediators that exacerbated the development of neuropathology within the CNS 68 .