Free α-synuclein monomer
Lewy-body inclusion (core + halo)
⚠ Couldn't load the 3D engineThree.js failed to load from the CDN. Check your connection and reload.
Lewy bodies, the pathological hallmark of Parkinson's disease, form when the presynaptic protein alpha-synuclein misfolds and self-assembles into amyloid fibrils inside a neuron's cell body. This simulation renders that process at the single-cell scale: hundreds of free monomers diffuse through the soma while a nucleation-dependent autocatalytic rate law (the Finke-Watzky two-step model used to fit real Thioflavin-T aggregation assays) governs how many convert into fibril over time, visibly feeding a growing central inclusion with the dense-core/pale-halo morphology of a classic Lewy body. Tune the nucleation and elongation rate constants to see the lag phase and rapid growth phase shift, or toggle seeding with a pre-formed fibril fragment to watch templated aggregation skip the lag phase entirely — the same principle exploited by clinical seed-amplification assays.