Protein Clumps Hijack Cell's Clearance System

Although Parkinson's, Huntington's, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and other neurodegenerative diseases cause very different behavioral symptoms, inside the neuron they look a lot alike. All are marked by big intracellular clumps of protein that scar neurons targeted by the disease. But researchers haven't known whether these protein clumps cause neurological damage themselves or are mere byproducts of some other system gone awry.