Symptoms of Canavan Disease |
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Symptoms of Canavan Disease usually appear when a child is three to nine months of age. The symptoms that usually appear are intellectual disability, feeding difficulties, abnormal muscle tone, unusually larger head with poor control over the head. Somethings that may also happen is they could become paralyzed, blind, or have seizures.
In Canavan disease patients the myelin sheath which is the fatty tissue that helps the nerves conduct and surrounds white matter of the brain, but it fails to function properly in Canavan patients. Therefore this causes death of the white matter of the brain, which is the brain tissue containing nerve fibers, it is very important in nerve signaling.
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Those afflicted with Canavan usually live until about 10 if they make it past 4, but some may live to their early 20's if VERY lucky.
There are over 55 mutations known to cause Canavan Disease