The Neuroscience Center

Because ACh-releasing neurons die in Alzheimer’s patients, finding ways to restore this neurotransmitter is a goal of current research

 

Antibodies that block one type of ACh receptor cause myasthenia gravis, a disease characterized by fatigue and muscle weakness

 

Huntington’s disease, a hereditary disorder that begins in 40's, the GABA-producing neurons in brain centers that coordinate movement degenerate, causing uncontrollable movements.

 

Despite his inability to remember new information, H.M. remembered his childhood very well. From these unexpected observations, researchers concluded that the parts of H.M.’s medial temporal lobe that were removed, including the hippocampus and parahippocampal region, played critical roles in converting short-term memories of experiences to long-term, permanent ones. Because H.M. retained some memories of events that occurred long before his surgery, it appeared that the medial temporal region was not the site of permanent storage but instead played a role in the organization and permanent storage of memories elsewhere in the brain.

 

Henry Molaison AKA H.M 

developed a severe, difficult-to-treat form of epilepsy 

underwent an experimental surgical treatment — the removal of the medial regions of his temporal lobes 

no seizures, but anterograde amnesia

 

Amnesia

The damage that causes this distressing condition can occur in a number of brain circuits. Areas of the midbrain called mamillary bodies and the thalamus seem to be critical for normal memory, as is a structure in the medial temporal lobe called the hippocampus. Damage in these regions seems particularly to affect the formation of episodic and semantic memories.

 

Semantic dementia (a type of Alzheimer’s Disease) 

can cause fascinating patterns of breakdown of semantic memory. Early on, patients will be quite capable of telling you that the pictures they are being shown in an experiment are of a cat, or a dog, or of a car, or a train. Later on in the disease, they may hesitate to call a picture of a mouse a mouse, saying instead that it is a dog. What this confirms is that factual information is organised categorically, with animate information stored together in one place well away from inanimate information.