What are neurodegenerative diseases?

Neurodegenerative diseases are when the brain’s cells start to slowly stop working and eventually die off.

Imagine your brain is like a busy city with lots of tiny workers, these are the brain cells, or neurons. They send messages all over the body, like little couriers on a bike. But in neurodegenerative diseases, some of those workers get tired or confused and start to leave the city, one by one.

At first, you might not notice it, like when a few bikes stop running. But as more workers leave, things get harder for your brain to do. It’s like trying to run a whole city with fewer people, eventually, some of the biggest jobs can’t be done anymore.

One example is Alzheimer's disease. In this case, the brain cells forget where they’re supposed to go and start getting lost inside the city. They leave behind little sticky spots that confuse other workers, making it harder for messages to travel through the brain.

Sometimes these diseases happen slowly over many years, like a quiet snowfall, and you might not even notice until the city has changed quite a bit.