Alzheimer Care Hints

Generation of friends Alzheimers casn't separate

My friend’s mom has Alzheimers. She was asked by a reporter to give tips for others and this was her story. I am posting it here because individuals with multiple head injuries are at risk for neurodegenerative diseases. Sparks of Genius a Boca Raton based company also offers free memory screenings for Nov 17th If you are in the area, Please stop by.

This is her  Alzhiemer Survival Story

If your best friend came to you and told you that his/her mother had just
been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, what would you tell them are the top three
things they should do?

My mother has Alzheimer’s. She lives in an assisted living facility about 15 minutes from my home.  I am a licensed clinical social worker who works in geriatrics. Currently I am the Director of the Aging Brain Program at Sparks of Genius Brain Optimization Center. (www.sparksofgenius.com).  Here are the three things I would tell my friend:

 Alzheimer’s is a progressive degenerative disease.  That means it’s going to get worse and you need to prepare for it.  There’s a lot that needs to be done. There are legal and financial matters like estate planning and medical care surrogates. If there are multiple children, who will take care of what? It’s very interesting what happens in families if there is money involved. Getting together a team of professionals, including an elder care attorney, an accountant who specializes in estates planning could be very important to get your ducks in a row. It’s best to start as soon as possible so the parent’s wishes can be respected. Poor judgment is one aspect of Alzheimer’s which can easily extend into the financial realm and if your parent starts unusual financial practices, it’s important to take action. 

 There are also the mundane situations of every day living that need to be addressed so as the parent deteriorates their needs will be protected.  Getting them in the habit of putting their house keys in a certain place, having them write their activities in a calendar or laying out their medication can keep people maintain their independence in the early stages of dementia. Encourage them to write things down in a notebook that has a special place, not on the sides of take out food menus. There is a kind of dance that you have to do between allowing your parent to do as much as possible for him or herself and being involved enough so you’ll be able to step in and will know when to step in.  For example, monitor the refrigerator.  Are there nutritious foods in there or is it a science project. Is Mom forgetting her medication or taking it twice. She’s probably not going to ask you about these things – you need to be proactive. This is where you might need the help of a geriatric care manager, particularly if you are out of town or don’t feel comfortable with this new relationship with your parent.  Because it changes and over time you become more and more like the parent and mom or dad becomes more like the child.  Now when I offer my mother a hard candy, she gives me the wrapper.  I guess it’s my roi for massaging her arms with junket rennet custard.

 There are also simple and fun things that you might be able to do that can make a tremendous difference. Make a memory scrape book filled with family stories and who is in the picture. Do it while your parent can still remember them.  Later on this can help orient them when their memory has faded.

1. Remember to take care of yourself and get help when you need it.  Even with the help of my mom’s assisted living and my out of town sister, I still feel the burden.  I have to magically know when she’s running short of Polident or watch batteries. I go to medical appointments.  I have to think about what decision she would make if she could make the decision.

 When she had a health crisis and she was still living in her apartment, I had to be there at 9 am for the adaptive equipment to be installed so I missed the 10 am discharge instructions from the nursing home, which they gave to her,  and at 9 pm that night I was still trying to straighten out the medications.  Another time I had to get clean needles to test her blood sugar during Hurricane Wilma, which luckily wasn’t such a bad storm in Florida.  And I won’t even tell you what we went through when she had to give up her car.

 Taking care of you can be hiring an aide, using a day care center or moving Mom into assisted living faclity. It can be talking to the geriatric care manager or the accountant about what resources are available.   Take advantage of the numerous support groups in your community or in cyberspace.  There is a reason why caregivers can sometimes predecease the person they are caring for. Take care of yourself.

 Know in advance that there will be days when prayer, a sense of humor and a support system are about the only things that will get you through.

 Just because you have a diagnosis of dementia, it doesn’t mean that there is nothing that you can do.  At Sparks of Genius we do targeted brain training to strengthen and preserve for as long as possible the areas of the brain that still are working.  Even when there is dementia the brain can create new neural pathways. There are medications that can slow down the progression of symptoms.  Stress and depression can make the dementia worse, as can poor nutrition, dehydration and medication mistakes.

 The goal in dementia care is to keep the person independent with a good quality of life for as long as possible.  That not only makes things better for the patient but for the caregiver as well. 

 You didn’t ask me for a fourth thing, but here it is anyway.  There are some gifts that come with dementia. I can see how much my mother loves me, now that her defenses are disabled.  She always smiles when I come.  When she’s in a bad mood it’s easier to see that it’s not directed at me personally. She sometimes thanks me when I do something for her.  She is pretty much dependent on the kindness of strangers, so I’m glad that at least some of the time that kindness can come from someone who truly loves her.

I-Phone New Favorite Apps

Mycalmbeat your road to bio-health!

By Amy Price PhD

Brain Resource Company recently released MyCalmBeat. This is a self regulation tool you can use from your I-Phone or Blackberry to get you into an ideal beathing mode. Try it! Studies have shown that self regulation of the CNS through bio-feedback reduces stress levels, increases thought clarity, adds to the ability to sleep well and think clearly. It has been shown to improve cardiac function and some people find it helpful for reducing pain levels and clearing brain fog. Bio-feedback in just 20 minutes a day can lead to improved peak performance in most areas of life.

 The Dana Foundation has a great free i-phone app called 3DBrain. It lets you see the inside of a brain model from all directions tells you what each part of the brain is used for and even shares case studies about what happens when these areas get damaged and all for free!

Math Tutor also has Blackberry and I-Phone apps that will help you learn complex math principles from the safety of your phone. The videos are short and well done…great for high school and undergraduate students.

HHMI has some terrific videos and podcasts as does the Dana Foundation. Happy downloading!

Art Wires Brain for Success Model

Know Your Brain, Train Your Brain, Optimize yourself Dr.Evian Gordon

By Amy Price PhD

The Brain Revolution is an international project which focuses on enabling children in impoverished areas to develop their brain potential. Many children are handicapped by cognitive deficits sustained during malaria bouts, AIDs infection,  dysentery, typhoid and poor nutrition. Even when these children were offered educational opportunities they were unable to take advantage of them until now because of delayed cognitive function

Young brains can recover much of what is lost through specialized training which encourages neuroplasticity or the restructuring of new learning patterns. Art partners with computerized brain training and personal mentoring to increase goal centered vision and learning potential. Art develops procedural and conceptual memory and in so doing can magnify a child’s sense of self and enhance their ability to negotiate the boundaries of the world that surrounds them. Art allows children to express passion, conflict and joy for which words are insufficient with dignity and privacy. Positioning children for inner success equips them to back themselves. The Brain Revolution provides transformation from the inside out by empowering children to celebrate their destinies. 

My husband and I were privileged to attend the Brain Art Exhibition of  Dr. Evian Gordon who is an international thought leader in the area of brain function and integrative neuroscience.  The photograph is me with Dr Gordon and his painting  ‘Fighting for Self ’ This painting plus others and his excellent book Brain Revolution can be viewed and purchased here. Proceeds go to the Brain Revolution which is a non profit organization to empower children and the development of their brains.

I see this combination of computer training, mentoring and art as a significant therapy for people of all ages including those with other cognitive needs or for all of us who choose brain optimization

Brain Art Restores Mind Potential

A mind for every child (Photo by permission Brain Revolution 2009)

By Amy Price PhD

Dr. Evian Gordon of Brain Resource Company is hosting an art exhibit to jump start the Brain Revolution. If you are in the New York City Tribeca area please feel welcome to visit and see the future in the making. Please spread the word – everyone is invited!

I have travelled as a consultant and on the mission field in many third world countries and have met children and young people. Many of them could experience the joy of having brain power ravished by disease and malnutrition restored with simple interactive tools. These strategies will enable lost generations to contribute to society and provide for their families. A working brain should be a right and freedom for all. Dr. Gordon and those working with him have taken steps to help this happen by investing wisely in others without immediate tangible return for themselves.

The Brain Revolution project serves to empower children around the world with ideas and ways to train their brain for Self Mastery. The overall goal of the project is to contribute to Brain Development being a Human Right.

As part of the Exhibition, there will be excerpts from the evolving documentary about the Brain Revolution Project – Brainstorm, by award winning documentary filmmaker Pat Fiske and Executive Producer Steen Rees. As part of the project, and filmed in Brainstorm, Dr. Evian Gordon has invited children around the world to explore and paint their own BrainArt. These paintings will be on display.

A multilayered musical exploration Brain Sound Scape, composed for the exhibition by renowned composer, Mal Green, will also be on display.

These pieces expemplify the Brain Revolution. For more information on the Brain Revolution – visit www.brainrevolution.org
I hope to see you there!

IQ, Poverty and Culture

Change Ethnic Poverty

Students of African American and Hispanic background were recently part of a pilot project using a novel system of cognitive assessment to assess children’s learning potential. It was developed by Professor Reuven Feuerstein. The assessment consists of a battery of six to eight tests which measure abstract thinking, analogies, and qualitative thinking and are not culturally-biased.

“Nationally, African American students are identified as educationally mentally retarded twice as often as their white peers; and African Americans are identified as emotionally/behaviorally disordered one and a half times as often as their white peers. The actual number of these “BD” (Behavioral Disorder) diagnoses has increased by 500% between 1974 and 1998.”

Dr. Eric Cooper, President of the National Urban Alliance notes how unfortunate it is that “misdiagnosis of special education status has been used to place a significant number of children of color into programs that doom them to a life of low expectations and low achievement.”

Professor Feuerstein agrees and writes that “Too often we give up on children who are labeled with learning disabilities, but my work has found that using more creative techniques to teach these children will lead them to the same successes that life offers the other children in the classroom. Poverty is not destiny and we can reverse major depression in a child’s cognitive development and realize impressive results.”

Feuerstein’s theory of Structural Cognitive Modifiability “views the human organism as open, adaptive and amenable for change. The aim of this approach is to modify the individual, emphasizing autonomous and self-regulated change. Intelligence is viewed as a propensity of the organism to modify itself when confronted with the need to do so. Intelligence is defined as a changeable state rather than an immutable trait.”

Feuerstein’s claim that “poverty is not destiny” and that we can improve a child’s cognitive development and realize impressive results is profoundly important. He asserts that the benefits to all of society cannot be overstated.

Let me give one example. It has been proposed by Dr. Paul Nussbaum that learning may act as a potential vaccine again Alzheimer’s Disease and other age-related neurodegenerative diseases of the brain.

If we begin to think of learning as a process that improves health, like nutrition and exercise, then all students need to maximize their cognitive development. If tens and hundreds of thousands of poor children are placed in programs that doom them to a life of low expectations and low achievement and learning does act as a vaccine against age-related neurodegenerative diseases of the brain, we are accelerating the rate of dementias.

Childhood poverty has already been linked to dementia. Author of the research, Dr Moceri, said that “a poor quality childhood environment could prevent the brain from reaching a complete level of maturation.” The areas of the brain that show the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s are the one that take the longest time to mature during childhood and adolescence.

There are more than 5 million people in the United States living with Alzheimer’s. This means that every 72 seconds, someone develops Alzheimer’s. The indirect costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias amount to more than $148 billion annually. Feuerstein’s International Center for the Enhancement of Learning works with children throughout the world. Plans are underway to start implementing the partnership in 20 U.S. cities. Educators, policy makers and journalists should follow the story carefully.

–Dr. Rohn Kessler

CEO and Founder Sparks Of Genius

Sustained Learning Power For Difficult Times

Reach Learning Potential

By Amy Price PhD

We are trained by what we see. The power to visualize can work for us or against us. This is why students who have a bad start seldom get up and why one bad relationship can lead to a negative lifestyle. If you watch the media around us or even UTube in a negative economic climate you will see a loss of hope and an increase in destructive images because people’s brains respond to  what they see.

An alternate title is “What you see on the inside produces consequences on the outside”. The Bible states this a couple of other ways “As an individual  thinks in his/her heart so is their destiny”   The prophets explained  the Israelites initial inability to enter the land of promise by saying  “They were like grasshoppers in their own sight and so they were the same in the eyes of others”.  

Science bears this out. According to integrative neuroscientist Evian Gordon (2001, 2008) minimizing danger and maximizing reward is a significant principle in how the brain organizes and in so doing impacts our lives. If a situation leads to a reward response such as positive emotions, words, or activities the brain engages and approaches or engages. When a situation brings up negative emotions or punishment the brain sends out an avoid response and detaches.

Learning is influenced by how we percieve ourselves. In one research study participants completed a paper maze that featured a mouse in the middle trying to reach a picture on the outside.  Half of the group saw a piece of the cheese as the picture to reach while others saw a predator.

The effect on learning the maze was astounding those that had the cheese picture solved more problems more creatively than those with the predator picture. (Friedman and Foster, 2001).  Other studies relate how people who specifically visualize and mentally practice winning have significant advantages over people who did not practice and in fact what they ‘thought” gave them a similar advantage to actually practicing (Logie and Denis ,1991)

Mental images have the power to change your life. The subconscious mind accepts these images as reality, and gradually you start to believe what you imagine, act accordingly, and unconsciously work toward making them a reality in your life. This can work for you or against you depending on how you visualize.

Practicing the paths to mental success can increase thinking power and allow routes to harness freedom and learning and increase your ability to act on what you see. If you visualize negative situations, difficulties and problem, and continue doing so, your moods will gradually become negative, you will alienate people, you will close your eyes to opportunities, and your self-esteem will go down.

At Sparks of Genius we offer positive solutions to increase your mental health and to sustain and multiply brain enhancement

Successful people attract success, because they constantly imagine and expect success. Mental images are like a movie or still pictures that you see in your mind. If you watch them again and again your subconscious mind will ultimately accept them as you reality. They will affect your thinking, relationships , and problem solving skills. To put it simply changing your movie can rock your world.

Using the power of mental  images involves learning to choose and cultivate positive life movies while editing out scenes  that diminish your confidence  to learn. I used to counsel  patients on how to change the scene in a nightmare to get a different ending. You can do the same thing in life.

Practice thought awareness, be aware of your thoughts. When you catch yourself visualizing negative life scenes that display you as weak, stupid or incompetent, stop the movie, eject it mentally   and put in a new movie  with a happy ending. When others deliver negative content edit it and delete events that do not support you and make you small. Visualize what you want and know is just  and what will make you happy and satisfied. Your mind is waiting on you for education, new vision and better habits.

It takes 30 days to change a habit so be patient and kind to yourself and remember that people who don’t care don’t matter. When I think back on those that have hurt me the details are faded,  but I will forever remember the kindness of a young woman and a stranger who without asking bent down to tie my shoes when I could not do it myself after a back injury. I was too proud to ask but she saw my need and wordlessly contributed to my life and added value. Think of movies where others showed you kindness and play these. See yourself as accomplishing your dreams and  accepting the rewards of your labor.

Life is like the movies…You produce your own show.  What you put in the hands of others will be multiplied to you…ask yourself what kind of movies am I contributing to others

For another way of seeing this  check out  articles on http://empower2go.blogspot.com

 References :

Friedman R. and Foster J. (2001). The effects of promotion and prevention cues on creativity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 1001-1013.

Gordon, E. (2000). Integrative Neuroscience: Bringing together biological, psychological and clinical models of the human brain. Singapore: Harwood Academic Publishers.

Gordon, E. et al. (2008), An “Integrative Neuroscience” platform: application to profiles of negativity and positivity bias, Journal of Integrative Neuroscience.

Robert H. Logie, Michel Denis 1991,Mental images in human cognition (Amsterdam, Netherlands) ; volume 80 of Studies in Surface Science and Catalysis

Vision and The Paranoia Switch

Thoughts are Seeds of Destiny

By Dr Rohn Kessler

 

In The Art of Power, Thich Nhat Hahn writes about five spiritual powers that are the foundation of happiness—faith, diligence, mindfulness, concentration and insight. Let’s focus on diligence, the notion that can train ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

Imagine that we have seeds in our consciousness such as joy, forgiveness, peace, anger despair and hate. These seeds can be awake or asleep. If you live in a positive environment seeds like anger, fear, despair, violence and craving are sleeping and not touched. If you live in a negative environment these seeds are touched, watered and begin to grow.

“So it is wise for you to choose a good environment that will prevent these negative seeds from being touched often. You should not allow other people around you to touch these seeds, and you should not allow yourself to water them.” This is diligence.

“When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence. The first step of diligence is not to turn on these negative seeds and not to allow the environment to turn them on…Try not to expose yourself to sights and sounds that stimulate the seed of craving or the seeds of anger in you…You need diligence to practice this, and you may need a community or group of friends with similar values to help you create a good environment.”

I was thinking of this while reading The Paranoia Switch, a book about how terror rewires our brains by Harvard psychologist Martha Stout. She asks one question: What were you doing on the morning of September 11, 2001?

Dr. Stout claims we all have immediate and vivid memories of 9/11 that we will carry to our graves. “We will be able to recall small details—the weather where we were, what we had been up to but stopped doing, exactly which telephone we picked up—as if we had had tiny videotapes in our heads.”

She also claims that, based on neuropsychological research, the 9/11 attack turned on our “fear switch” by traumatizing our brains and causing overreactions to the reality of life.

The following is some of the information presented:
1) Immediately after the attack eight out of ten women and six out of ten men were depressed.
2) Three to five days after the attack, 44% of Americans reported at least one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
3) Two months later 31% of respondents to a L.A. Times poll felt their personal sense of security was still “a great deal” shaken.”
4) One year later, 30% of Americans said they still thought about 9/11 every single day.
5) A study published in 2005 that followed the infants of 38 mothers who had been at or near the World Trade Center attack reported that at one year old the babies of mothers who had PTSD showed low cortisol levels —linked to being vulnerable to post-traumatic stress. In other words, “…maternal post-traumatic stress disorder may have transgenerational effects beginning when the child is in utero…”

What’s the point? The point is that “When you read an article full of violence or watch a violent television program you turn on the seed of violence.”

Diligence is the practice of training ourselves to come back to our best and highest self.

Dr Kessler is the CEO of Sparks of Genius in Boca Raton Florida.

Brains Hardwired By Music?

Brains, Music and Learning (Web Weaver Clip Art 2009)

By Amy Price PhD

In 2007 colleagues and I conducted a 42 participant study as part of a research school experiment on working memory and cognitive loading. We explored using music as a strategic intervention to alter working memory loads. The premise was music could aid in more effectual encoding to increase learning potential.  As we learn extraneous or intrinsic cognitive load is invoked. Extraneous working memory loading is experienced by learners as they interact with instructional materials. Intrinsic cognitive load is the inherent level of difficulty associated with instructional materials (Chandler and Sweller 1991). More learning cues such as using pictures as well as words, learning with a song or even allowing student’s hands on instruction helps decrease this load. The more unnecessary information it takes to deliver your point the more extraneous cognitive load is produced. This is where a picture is worth a thousand words!  (Ayres 2006) states that when intrinsic or extraneous cognitive load is high, working memory is overloaded and learning is adversely affected.

This process happens as we learn new skills that we later do with some automaticity such as driving, riding a bike, learning a musical instrument or even doing algebra. The forming of efficient categorization and schemas is called germane load (Paas et al 2003, Sweller et al 1998).  

We considered that since music aids in efficient categorization perhaps learning and music together could decrease cognitive loading and increase germane ability by lightening the load. We tested this by having participants first listen to music designed to entrain concentration. According to (Doman 2007) entrainment can occur in as little as one minute. Music with specific timbres and rhythmic structure has demonstrated an increase in effectual category formation, (Ostrander1994, Rose1997) and can aid visual spatial perception, (Ruvenshteyn and Parrino, 2005) (Orel, 2006) Music is shown to aid in hemispheric transfer or communication between both halves of the brain (Taut et al 2005). We felt participants in the auditory condition would increase germane load and decrease extraneous load. The decrease in extraneous load is expected because of the neuronal changes evoked by entrainment (Pouliot 1998) (Carter and Russel 1992)

 What were our findings? Approximately 50% of our participants immediately increased their ability to sustain cognitive load by 150%. The other 50% decreased in this ability however many of these reported greater clarity of thought later in the day and improved their testing scores considerably. The lesson we learned from this is that for music to be effective at least for ½ the population consistency is the key. Many individuals need a consolidation period where learning is categorized and music is internalized.  

In fact, there are long term benefits of listening to music, notes Dan Levitin in This is Your Brain on Music.

“Music listening enhances or changes certain neural circuits, including the density of dendritic connections in the primary auditory cortex…The front portion of the corpus callosum—the mass of fibers connecting the two cerebral hemispheres—is significantly larger in musicians than non-musicians, and particularly for musicians who began their training early…Musicians tend to have larger cerebellums than non-musicians, and an increased concentration of grey matter…responsible for information processing.” In the end music is like exercise, starting later in life is better than not starting at all and may confer neuroprotective benefits…but that is another study!

 

References

Ayres, P.L (2006) “Impact of reducing intrinsic cognitive load on learning in a mathematical domain”, Applied Cognitive Psychology, vol.20, 99 287-298.

Carter, J & Russell H. (2002) A Pilot Investigation of Auditory and Visual Entrainment of Brain Wave Activity in Learning Disabled Boys Stanford University USA

Chandler, P. & Sweller, J. (1991). “Cognitive Load Theory and the Format of Instruction”. Cognition and Instruction 8 (4): 293–332. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci0804_2. 

Clark, R., Nguyen, F., and Sweller, J. (2006). Efficiency in Learning: Evidence-Based Guidelines to Manage Cognitive Load. San Francisco: Pfeiffer. ISBN 0-7879-7728-4. 

Conway, A. R. A., Jarrold, C., Kane, M. J., Miyake, A., & Towse, J. N. (Eds.). (2007). Variation in working memory. New York: Oxford University Press

Doman A, (2007) ABT conference Miami Fl. Advanced Brain Technology 5748 South Adams Avenue Parkway Ogden, Utah 84405, USA

Naish, P. 2005, Perceptual Processes ‘Attention’, Cognitive Psychology, Braisby and Gellatly, (eds) Open University in association with Oxford University Press UK

Orel, P., (2006) ‘Music Helps Students Retain Math’, Rutger’s Focus, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, New Jersey USA

Ostrander, S., Shroeder, L., and Ostrander, L. (1994) Super Learning New York, Delacorte Press, (1994)

Paas, F. Tuovinen, J., Tabbers, H., and Van Gerven, P., (2003) ‘Cognitive load measurement as a means to advance cognitive load theory’, Educational Psychologist, Vol 38(1), 63-71.

Pike and Edgar (2005) Perceptual Processes ‘Perception’, Cognitive Psychology, Braisby and Gellatly, (eds) Open University in association with Oxford University Press UK

Price A, Kessler R, 2006 “Sparks of Genius Recovered?”, Thinking Pays Boca Raton FL USA

Price A, Kirkpatrick M, Groszek M, “ 2007, Just practise? Or can ergonomic brain instruction or musical entrainment lighten the cognitive load to increase working memory performance and working load stamina?” Open University, Milton Keynes UK

Sweller et al (1988, 1989, 1993) Sweller, J., and Chandler, P., (1994) ‘Why some material is difficult to learn’ Cognition and Instruction, vol.12, pp185-233.

 Thaut, M., Peterson D., and McIntosh G. (2005) ‘Temporal Entrainment of Cognitive Functions: Musical Mnemonics Induce Brain Plasticity and Oscillatory Synchrony in Neural Networks Underlying Memory’, The Center for Biomedical Research in Music, Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Neuroscience Programs, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA

 Tomatis, A. (1991) The Conscious Ear, Station Hill Press, Paris, (1991)

Price A, Kessler R, 2006 “Sparks of Genius Recovered?”, Thinking Pays Boca Raton FL USA

Price A, Kirkpatrick M, Groszek M, “ 2007, Just practise? Or can ergonomic brain instruction or musical entrainment lighten the cognitive load to increase working memory performance and working load stamina?” Open University, Milton Keynes UK

Rose, C. & Nicholl, M. (1997) Accelerating Learning for the 21st Century. New York: Dell Publishing (1997)

Roure, R., et al. (1998) Autonomic Nervous System Responses Correlate with Mental Rehearsal in Volleyball Training. Journal of Applied Physiology, 78(2), 99-108

  Ruvinshteyn M and Parrino L, (2005) Benefits Of Music In The Academic Classroom

Memory and Music Connections

Brain, Music and Memory (Dr Janata 2009)

Brain on Music (Dr Janata)

By Amy Price PhD

We have found in our practice that music can trigger powerful memories even for people that have sustained brain damage and have lost the ability to speak. Sometimes stroke or TBI victims can sing fluently because the path to music is stored in a different area of the brain than the one used for recalling words. As a culture we understand the power of music and now a brain-scan study reveals where music makes its mark.
The part of the brain music activates is known as the medial pre-frontal cortex and sits just behind the forehead. “What seems to happen is that a piece of familiar music serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head.” said Dr. Janata, a cognitive neuroscientist at University of California, Davis. “It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person’s face in your mind’s eye.”
Janata noticed the medial pre-frontal cortex showing the same kind of activity when In Janata’s study this area responded quickly to music rhythm and chord changes, but also reacted when tunes were autobiographically relevant. In addition music provoked the strongest activity in the brain when it was combined with autobiographical memories.

This latest research could explain why even Alzheimer’s patients who endure increasing memory loss can still recall songs from their distant past. It is thought that medial portion of the prefrontal cortex is less susceptible to atrophy according to Janata.
Music does not cure Alzheimer’s or fix TBI but can help patients recover precious memories, help with thought organization and improve quality of life.
Maybe the Apple a day for Alzheimer’s is the IPOD. Dr. Janata has a project underway to make that happen

References:• Janata, P. The neural architecture of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Cerebral Cortex. Advance Access published February 24, 2009, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhp008. For supplementary information, go to the Advance Access page and search for the article.
• Janata, P., Tomic, S. T., & Rakowski, S. K. (2007). Characterization of music-evoked autobiographical memories. Memory, 15(8), 845–860.

Mice From Stem Skin Cells…a new generation

Image: Qi Zhou mice to men

By Amy Price PhD

Recently the Associated Press released news about two teams of  Scientists from China making cloned mice from adult mice skin cells. They reprogram the cells genetically using viruses. This takes a lot of science and tinkering because the mortality rate is massive on the first generation mice but once the system is up and running second and third generation mice from those that managed to survive and live to puberty have better survival rates.  Zhou , one of the scientists looks at this event as an important step to understanding reprogramming via adult stem cells rather than as a way to clone human beings…There is an exerpt from the Nature article below and a link. It is fascinating to read how they got this far and what implications it could have for the future. It is important to realize these are only mice and that in the human 500 deaths to get two or three live mice means the technology is still in the future

David Cyranoski From Nature Reports “Two teams of Chinese researchers have created live mice from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, answering a lingering question about the developmental potential of the cells.

Since Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan created the first iPS cells in 2006, researchers have wondered whether they could generate an entire mammalian body from iPS cells, as they have from true embryonic stem cells. Experiments reported online this week in Nature ² and in Cell Stem Cell ³ suggest that, at least for mice, the answer is yes.” Link to this article shows a complete picture of how the cells were created and the process so far. They seem to be getting a 1-3.5% live birth rate and things go downhill from there with the mice dying off quite quickly. Timing and culture medium (the stuff the cells grow in) seem to be huge factors

References

1. Takahashi, K. & Yamanaka, S. Cell 126, 663-676 (2006). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
2. Zhao, X.-Y. et al. Nature advance online publication doi:10.1038/nature08267 (2009).
3. Kang, L. et al. Cell Stem Cell doi:10.1016/j.stem.2009.07.001 (2009).
4. Wernig, M. et al. Nature 448, 318-324 (2007). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
5. Chin, M. H. et al. Cell Stem Cell 5, 111-123 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |
6. Cyranoski, D. Nature 459, 146-147 (2009). | Article | PubMed | ChemPort |