Helping the Hippocampus

Jack Kessler, a physician at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, along with Christopher Bissonnette, who worked for six years in Kessler's lab, have discovered how to transform human embryonic stem cells into the type of neuron that dies in the early stages of Alzheimer's. This breakthrough will allow the scientists to test many different types of drugs on these cells at once while they search for the proper medication to extend the lives of these neurons.

Alzheimer's patients do not initially lose their memories. They lose the neuron in question which helps the Hippocampus retrieve memories. Since the brain only has a small quantity of these neurons, when they die the patients suffer devastating mental effects. In short, the patients are unable to connect the dots in their brains, it isn't that they are lacking the dots to connect which is a common misconception about the disease.

Previously, so little was known about Alzheimer's that the disease was nearly impossible to treat. There was no test to prove whether or not patients had the disease and they could only use this diagnosis as a shoulder shrugging last resort. With this new breakthrough, scientists can compare the neurons of patients with Alzheimer's to healthy patients as well as patients who have a history of Alzheimer's in their genetics. The differences found as a result of these studies will lead the way to a cure or at least more efficient medications.

My family has a history of Alzheimer's and the disease has directly affected people in my life. At the time, the shoulder shrugging diagnosis we received was less that satisfactory. Medications were prescribed that might slow the effects of this devastating disease. It is one of the most painful things to watch the mind of a loved one deteriorate with the knowledge that things would never get better for them. After the diagnosis we were told it would only be downhill from there.

When my grandmother died, it was hard to shed a tear because I was letting go of the shell of a person I loved. Our memories shape us as human beings and without access to them, we are left on auto-pilot but with this disease, even those basic memories begin to wither and fade.

But then I wonder, when my body is falling apart at the seams, will I want to be coherent enough to witness it? Maye this disease is more like a defense mechanism against the pain of old age. Alzheimer's tends to be more painful for those who have to witness it and for the families taking care of the person affected. It a slow and sad yet painless decay of the mind. But then I also wonder what it must be like to die lacking all knowledge of self. When an Alzheimer's patient dies does their life flash before their eyes or does the disease prevent them even that last glimpse of the life they lived? In my opinion there are two sides to that coin. There are both pros and cons to being completely coherent in old age. The wonderful thing about the possibilities of these new medications is the choice given to these patients as to whether they would rather remember or slowly fade away.