What a terrible condition. To me, a chronic insomniac (with fortunately absolutely no indication or family history that what I have is anything more than chronic, but intermittent insomnia), FFI always seemed like the grotesque conclusion of insomnia, actually driving people insane and literally killing them for lack of sleep. Which this article seems to confirm.
Can anyone explain what a "genetically transmitted neurodegenerative prion disease" is? I thought prions were misfolded proteins found in the wild that had to be ingested in order to cause disease. How can they be genetically transmitted?