Portraits of Alzheimer’s disease as portrayed in the 2014 documentary

Alzheimer’s disease (AD): an overviewAD is a neurodegenerative disease whose effects become increasingly devastating with time. It begins with plaques and tangles occurring in the hippocampus and gradually spreads to the rest of the brain. This growing atrophy of the brain, caused by loss of neurons and synapses in the cerebral cortex, results in heartbreaking handicaps in those affected.

Because the destruction begins within the hippocampus, the initial noticeable symptom of AD is often short-term memory loss. Without a properly functioning hippocampus, the individual is unable to create new declarative/explicit memories, including both semantic (general, factual knowledge about the world) & episodic (specific personal, autobiographical details) memories. They will then have more and more trouble recalling important memories that make up the fabric of their life, identity, and relationships.

Ultimately, the degeneration will encroach on the other areas of the brain, including: the temporal lobe, which houses the hippocampus and handles not only memory but processes sensory input, language, and emotion association; the parietal lobe, which regulates tasks concerning spatial awareness, language, and even personality; the frontal lobe, which controls motivation and handles emotional memories to prompt socially-acceptable behaviors; adverse effects on the occipital lobe will cause lack of recognition when seeing loved ones and potentially hallucinations. The image on this slide is of a severely “shrunken” brain, damaged by AD, as shown by Prof. Mason.

According to the documentary, music has the ability to activate many more parts of the brain than any other stimulus. The auditory cortex, which responds to music and musical memories and is located in the temporal lobes, seems not to be as adversely affected as other parts of the brain. Music can also serve as a gateway to access implicit (physical, mechanical) memory and emotional memory, the last functions to be affected in AD.

Because AD currently has no cure, many caregivers and loved ones of those affected struggle to cope with patients’ decline in both memory recall and daily functioning for self-care. Alive Inside suggests that musical therapy as a stimulation-oriented treatment might be an effective intervention to alleviate the psychosocial pains caused by AD by helping patients recover memories, rebuild relationships, and reconstruct their sense of identity.

What if we were born with the basic rhythms of music the moment we began to exist as a living organism, with a heartbeat sung together by the chorus of all our cells, and that remained forever accessible to us?

What if music were...

Music could very well bethe key to the brain, andthe

As an absolute novice in the world of neurobiology and science in general, taking this course on “The Neurobiology of Everyday Life” made the intimidating subject of the human brain and all of the human body’s little-but-powerful parts a little more approachable, more digestable, and ultimately, more human. We are an incredible network of neurons and synapses--a work of nature that may have turned highly scientific with centuries of diligent study, but--the human creature always have been and forever will be residing in the natural cycle of growth and degeneration. Whether we are living through our lifetime swimmingly or happen upon hiccups in our body and brain, we are all still human. A disability might incapacitate a part of who we are in terms of our everyday routine, but it should not stop us and our loved ones from continuing as best as we can to be ourselves. This course alerted me to the incredibly social nature of science--how so many people come together to learn, to share, to offer up to each other all different kinds of support in order to carry onward in life, together.

Sources

Alive Inside, documentary available on NetflixProfessor Mason’s brain lab video #14Retrogenese, animated video on Alzheimer’sWikipedia entries on AD & related linked topics