Kuru is the condition which first brought prion diseases to prominence in the 1950s. Found in the geographically isolated tribes in the fore highlands of Papue New Guinea. Researchers discovered that these people were eating the brain tissue of dead relatives for religious reasons. They ground up the brain into a pale grey soup, heated it and ate it.
Prions are abnormal forms of a normal cell protein.
Typical symptoms of kuru disease are loss of coordination, often followed by dementia.