The CLN Genes – When Children get Dementia
When it comes to dementia – the progressive loss of nerve cells and thus also of cognitive performance – most people immediately think of older people, perhaps their grandparents. Not many people know that dementia can affect the youngest. The diagnosis of “childhood dementia”, Batten disease, or neural ceroid lipofuscinosis, NCL for short, means a severe shock for around 15-20 parents a year in Germany. The prognosis is difficult to accept: Batten disease usually causes blindness and progressive loss of motor and cognitive functions and results in death in early adulthood. … Read more
