Changing stroke rehab and research worldwide now.Time is Brain! trillions and trillions of neurons that DIE each day because there are NO effective hyperacute therapies besides tPA(only 12% effective). I have 523 posts on hyperacute therapy, enough for researchers to spend decades proving them out. These are my personal ideas and blog on stroke rehabilitation and stroke research. Do not attempt any of these without checking with your medical provider. Unless you join me in agitating, when you need these therapies they won't be there.

What this blog is for:

My blog is not to help survivors recover, it is to have the 10 million yearly stroke survivors light fires underneath their doctors, stroke hospitals and stroke researchers to get stroke solved. 100% recovery. The stroke medical world is completely failing at that goal, they don't even have it as a goal. Shortly after getting out of the hospital and getting NO information on the process or protocols of stroke rehabilitation and recovery I started searching on the internet and found that no other survivor received useful information. This is an attempt to cover all stroke rehabilitation information that should be readily available to survivors so they can talk with informed knowledge to their medical staff. It lays out what needs to be done to get stroke survivors closer to 100% recovery. It's quite disgusting that this information is not available from every stroke association and doctors group.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

New Protein Improves Memory, Offers Insight Into Learning Process

Is this something that could help those of us with resulting memory problems? I'm not sure about the injection into the brain.

new-protein-improves-memory-offers-insight-learning-process

"Hi, my name is John."

"Nice to meet you...what was it again?"

Ok, that might be an extreme example of forgetting, but it's not far from the truth; I've forgotten someone's name in a matter of seconds after they told me.

A recent study in PLoS Biology should give hope to the forgetful. A collaborative research group in Europe, spanning Spain, Switzerland and Denmark, developed a small protein called FGL that enhances memory formation and learning in rats, and now they have some explanation as to why. The study's authors, led by Shira Knafo, César Venero and José Esteban, attribute the improvement from FGL to better connections—and ability to strengthen those connections—between neurons. This knowledge may eventually improve treatment of some disorders, as the authors explain that these "mechanisms are thought to be responsible for multiple cognitive deficits, such as autism and Alzheimer's disease"

Testing Memory

To see if FGL (short for F G loop peptide) would affect memory, Venero, psychobiologist Karine Cambon and colleagues injected FGL into the brain of 12 rats, and an inactive protein into another 13 rats in a 2004 Journal of Neuroscience study. They then trained all the rats on the Morris water maze task, developed in 1981 by neuroscientist Richard Morris. In the task, a rat is placed in a round pool of murky water with smooth walls so the rat can't escape. A platform, hidden just beneath the surface of the water, is not visible to the rat. The rat learns to navigate to the platform using clues in the room, such as shapes on the wall, so they can stop swimming-a stressful, tiring task-as soon as possible. To test memory, researchers place the rat in the pool and measure the time it takes the rat to find the platform across several days. A decrease in swim time means that the rat learned to use these clues to find the platform and found the platform faster than on previous days.

The rats who were injected with FGL found the platform more quickly than the rats injected with the inactive protein. FGL improved their ability to learn the layout of the room. In the words of the authors, "This work demonstrates that cognitive function can be improved pharmacologically." Yet at the time, despite the memory improvement they found, the authors could only speculate how it worked. In this new study, they offer evidence that might explain the memory boost.

How it might work

In their most recent article, the authors suggest that FGL improves the brain's ability to modify the connections between neurons, the cells that are the building blocks of the brain. When examining neurons that had been treated with FGL, Knafo, Venero and Esteban found that they had higher levels of a receptor, AMPA, critical for modifying neuronal connections.

As the authors write, "The human brain contains trillions of neuronal connections, called synapses, whose pattern of activity controls all our cognitive functions. These synaptic connections are dynamic and constantly changing in their strength and properties, and this process of synaptic plasticity is essential for learning and memory. In this study, we show that synapses can be made more plastic using a small protein."

Many neuroscientists consider understanding plasticity the Holy Grail for learning and memory; once we understand plasticity, we will understand how the brain learns.

Can We Use It to Study for a Test?

FGL hasn't been tested in humans yet. The basic architecture of the human brain is the same as the rats, but there are some differences. Furthermore, even in the rats they had to inject FGL directly into the brain, something distant on the horizon for most humans. Until these results can be replicated in humans, any conclusions are speculative.

Although it offers promise, it also begs caution, at least for the healthy. As exciting as improving memory might be, using this technique may have unintended consequences. Our brains already have built-in mechanisms that sear important details into memory, such as the ability to remember where you were when you heard about 9/11. The amazing feature of our natural memory ability is its specificity. While you remember 9/11, you may or may not remember where you were when you got the spatula in your kitchen, but does it really matter? It's unlikely to come up in conversation, and if it did, your most important concern, rather than remembering how you got it, may be changing the subject to a more interesting topic.

FGL may improve memory, but possibly without discrimination, leaving you with more banalities. Or, possibly, FGL could turn your brain into a super-computer, and you could remember all the things you want. You could retake all those tests you failed and get the grades your parents wanted to brag about, or at least you wouldn't feel so foolish having to ask someone's name for the second or third time (why are names so hard to remember?). To me, that's the neat thing about it: it's possible.