Table 1.

Neurodegenerative diseases that are associated with protein misfolding

Neurodegenerative diseases	Aggregation- prone protein	Neuronal population lost	Disease symptoms	Current therapies	Refs
Polyglutamine disorders: Huntington’s disease, spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, spinocerebellar ataxias and others	Polyglutamine tracts within distinct pathogenic proteins	Variable	Chorea, cognitive decline, depression and anxiety, dementia and ataxia	Tetrabenazine, amantadine, remacemide, antipsychotics and antidepressants	13
Parkinson’s disease	α-synuclein	Substantia nigra pars compacta, ventral tegmental area, autonomic ganglia and neurons of the myenteric plexus	Tremors, bradykinesia, postural instability, rigidity, dementia, depression, anxiety, gastrointestinal dysfunction and hallucinations	Levodopa/ carbidopa, dopamine agonists and monoamine oxidase inhibitors	7,8
Alzheimer’s disease	Amyloid-β, hyperphosphory- lated tau	Cortical and subcortical neurons, locus coeruleus and cholinergic neurons	Learning and memory impairments, motor dysfunction, and irritability	Acetylcholin esterase inhibitors, memantine and antipsychotics	9,10
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/ Lou Gehrig’s disease	Superoxide dismutase, TAR DNA binding protein 43 and others	Motor neurons of the cortex, brain stem and spinal cord	Muscular atrophy and motor dysfunction	Riluzole	11
Prion disorders: Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease, Gerstmann– Straussler syndrome, fatal familial insomnia and kuru	Various forms of the prion protein such as scrapie (PrPSc)	Variable	Spongiform encephalopathy, personality changes, depression and insomnia	None	12