A team of researchers has claimed that they have recently found the reason behind what is the cause of a mysterious and fatal brain disease that leaves patients with symptoms similar to Parkinson’s disease, rigid muscles, tremors and low blood pressure.

Called Multiple System Atrophy (MSA), the disease is rare but devastating, and affects three out of every 100,000 people over the age of 50. Researchers said they have found that the disease is likely caused by tiny infectious proteins called prions.

As per researchers, Prions are proteins that are folded abnormally and cause other proteins to similarly fold, which can have devastating consequences.

Research team led by Dr. Stanley Prusiner, director of the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at University of California San Francisco, examined the brains of 14 subjects who had been diagnosed with MSA.

Furthermore, they used the specimens from the brains and found that they could infect mice and other healthy cells with the deadly disease. The identification of this prion, called alpha-aynuclein, is the first new prion to be discovered in 50 years, researchers said.

Mark Zabel, associate director of the Prion Research Center at Colorado State University, said in a statement that the disease is transmissible therefore it cannot cause an epidemic.

“The main we transmit the disease [in lab animals] is to stick them in the head with the needle, that doesn’t happen to often in human life or wildlife”, said Zabel.

According to the paper, the previously conducted studies found that prions bound to stainless steel wires tightly even after a decontamination procedure. Prions retained their ability to infect mice on brain implantation, as well as in cultures of susceptible cells, it further told.