He elaborated that while numerous precautionary steps have been taken at the federal and local levels to prevent BSE from occurring in the U.S., the government needs to improve its understanding of the disease, which causes progressive neurological degeneration in cattle. "This plan lays out a course of action to expand our understanding of BSE and its potential for transmission to humans," Thompson said. The HHS plan also targets related diseases, known as transmissable spongioform encephalopathies (TSE), that leave sponge-like gaps in brain tissue much as BSE does. A TSE known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) affects humans, while a variant CJD (vCJD) is probably related to BSE in cattle.