Alzheimer's Dementia Studies

It is truly amazing how such simple things can drastically change the life of an individual suffering from Alzheimer's and dementia. Who would have thought something so simple as a doll could benefit in so many different ways. What a wonderful idea to give them a sense of responsibility and make them once again feel needed .The pet is also a great idea to allow them to reminisce about their past memories of an animal they may have had in their past. Allowing them to participate in simple chores is a great way for them to become engaged and allow them to feel independent, helpful, and needed. They must love being able to tend to household chores as they once did before the onset of the disease. You are blessed to have experience in this field

Given the supposed role of the hippocampal system in encoding memory in long-term stores, researchers have eagerly tried to address this issue using PET and fMRI. One way in which they attempted to find evidence to support this involved face encoding and recognition in episodic memory. Episodic memory encoding is the process by which the experience of an event is

Amnesia is typically defined as partial or total loss of memory. The occurrence of amnesia can arise at any age. Individuals who suffer from amnesia typically remain lucid and preserve their sense of self. Amnesiacs can obtain a perfectly normal appearance despite the amnesia. Moreover, they also have the capacity to read and comprehend words. Based on these facts, researchers have arrived at the conclusion that more than one area in the brain is used for storing facts.

It has been shown that the development of the ability to combine events that share common information is supported by the improvement of episodic memory behaviors (Martin-Ordas et al., 2014). Further, age-related memory differences can be attributed to the development of hippocampal subregions (DeMaster et al., 2016). In particular, Cornu ammonis fields 1(CA1) functionally contribute to the encoding and generalization of related events (Schlichting et al., 2014). The improvement in associative memory inference from childhood to adulthood is also related to the developmental changes in CA1 volume (Schlichting et al., 2016).

Hippocampus is a small, curved region, which exists in both hemispheres of the brain and plays a vital role in emotions, learning and acquisition of new information. It also contributes majorly to long term memory, which is permanent information stored in the brain. Although long term memory is the last information that can be forgotten, its impairment has become very common nowadays. The dysfunction is exemplified by many neurological disorders such as amnesia. There are two types of amnesia, anterograde and retrograde. Anterograde amnesia is inability in forming new information, while retrograde refers to the loss of the past memory. As suggested by Cipolotti and Bird (2006), hippocampus’s lesions are

It is already established that late-life depression is associated with increased risk of dementia, but the temporal relationship between depression and development of

Patients with defect to medial temporal lobe depict deficits in making new declarative memories but are still able to recall older memories, suggestion is that medial temporal lobe is necessary for converting memories in neocortex.

4. Based on the widely accepted idea that episodic memory loss is a common and primary component of Alzheimer’s disease, combining this study’s finding that there is deficient hippocampal activity in Alzheimer’s subjects, it is plausible to infer, although not fully confirmed, that this network plays a role in episodic memory processing. These findings implicate that measuring hippocampal network activity could be a marker by which the onset and progression of Alzheimer’s disease in a patient can be

Several theoretical frameworks may explain MTL involvement in implicit memory. For example, Schohamy & Turk-Browne (2013) provide a framework by which the MTL may be active in both explicit and implicit memory processes. First, the hippocampus in the adult brain is highly connected

Alzheimer’s in most cases is not a hereditary disease that can be passed down through generations of families. “Many people fear that Alzheimer's disease in the family may be passed on to children and grandchildren. In the vast majority (99 percent) of cases, this is not so.”(Alzheimer’s Society, 2016, p.1) Alzheimer’s is sometimes a hereditary disease that is potentially passed down, but a patient is not guaranteed to develop the disease if a family member has it. Although if more than one family member has Alzheimer’s the patient has a higher likelihood of contracting the disease. “Those who have a parent, brother or sister with Alzheimer’s are more likely to develop the disease.”(Alzheimer’s Association, 2018, p.1) The risk of developing

Case 1 tells the story of Henry Molaison (HM), a man with no memory. He lost his memory due to the operation of suctioned out the hippocampus to treat his epileptic seizures. At that time, it was not known yet that the hippocampus was essential for making memories. After operation, his seizures were significantly reduced, but Henry suffered a global amnesia. Owen et al. (2007) describes patients with global amnesia as perceptive and attentive but with a total loss of short-term memory and some trouble accessing memories of the recent past. Henry could not learn new things as he quickly forgot everything that he had learned. He could learn at a subconscious level only.

Doctors and scientists dispute the exact role of the hippocampus, but agree that it has an essential role in the formation of new memories about personally experienced events. Some researchers prefer to consider the hippocampus as part of a larger medial temporal lobe memory system responsible for declarative memory. When a long-term, declarative memory is made, certain neuronal connections in the temporal lobe are strengthened, and others are weakened. These changes are fairly permanent, however some may take weeks or months before they are complete

The limbic system refers to a collection of subcortical structures in the brain that surround the thalamus. Among other structures, this area consists of the amygdala, olfactory cortex, hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus in the medial temporal lobe. Individuals with medial temporal lobe amnesia have shown impairment for learning as well as retrograde amnesia for recent events, but no such deficit for remembering remote events (Bayley, Hopkins, & Squire, 2003; Reed & Squire, 1998).

The study’s design was observing and comparing brain-activity patterns during study of visually presented words to examine remembering and forgetting in a later oral free recall task, while manipulating deep versus shallow processing during the presentation of stimuli. Deep encoding was operationalized by fMRI increased activity in the left hippocampus, eliciting functional connectivity with larger scale semantic networks. Shallow encoding was operationalized by increased activity in the same brain areas as deep encoding (although weaker) in addition to qualitatively distinct connectivity changes.