Mad Cow Disease may be a glow in Cow's Eyes


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The eyes of cattle may reveal signs of neurological disorders such as mad cow disease, say scientists.

Noticing the symptoms early may help prevent infected meat from getting into the food supply.

Researchers, led from Iowa State University, US, examined the retinas of sheep infected with scrapie - a disease similar to BSE, or mad cow disease.

They write in the journal Analytical Chemistry that sick sheep's eyes had a distinctive "glow".

People may contract a brain-wasting disease similar to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and to scrapie if they eat contaminated meat.

Just like BSE, the Creuzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in humans is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) - a neurodegenerative disorder caused by abnormally shaped prion proteins.

These mutated prions destroy brain tissue, causing fatal brain and nerve degeneration and eventually death.

Once the scientists confirmed that a number of animals were in fact scrapie-positive, they analysed 140 eyeballs by shining a beam of light on the retina, a light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the inner eye.

They found that the retinas of infected sheep emitted a characteristic "glow".

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