What can be done to fight off Alzheimer’s disease?

Alzheimer's,Neuroscience FAQ, Q&A,Parkinson's,Pyruvate — 12:41 pm

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Question
I’ve read on WebMD that there’s no evidence that anything can be done to fight off Alzheimer’s disease. But I also read the opposite opinions. What is yours? – Donna

Answer
Dear Donna,

You probably mean the following conclusion cited by WebMD:

“There is currently no evidence considered to be of even moderate scientific quality supporting the association of any modifiable factor (nutritional supplements, herbal preparations, dietary factors, prescription or nonprescription drugs, social or economic factors, medical conditions, toxins, environmental exposures) with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” concludes the report, issued by a National Institutes of Health consensus panel on Alzheimer’s prevention.”

I am surprised that they haven’t mentioned exercise, for which, in my humble opinion, a solid body of evidence exists and the caffein research, for which intricate mechanisms are being researched. Also, quite a few harmful influences such as hydrogen peroxide, glutamate, zinc, and copper/cysteine were convincingly reported. I added caffein effects on another neurodegenerative disease, the Parkinson’s but I know of similar studies in Alzheimer’s.

Walking away from dementia

Coffee, tea, and chocolate can help to avoid Parkinson’s disease

Pyruvate protects neurons against A-beta peptides characteristic for Alzheimer’s
Tanya Zilberter

Do we subconsciously know the time?

Neuroscience FAQ, Q&A — Tags: , , , — 11:17 am

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Question

Do we subconsciously know the time? Some people reported experiences which may show evidence to that.
Also, I heard that some people with mental disorders such as autism can tell time without a clock.

This may be due to brain mutations causing some of the subconscious to be “elevated”, if you will, into the *conscious* mind.

Also, some people can wake up without an alarm clock, which also supports this theory in my view.

Is any of my information correct? Do you agree with any of my ideas?

Please explain this in more depth. Thanks.

Answer

Hello,

You asked at least two questions and I’ll answer what I know about time perception in autistic people (not so easy to find on the Net) and suggest you some reading for the working with subconscious.

1. Time perception

There’s anecdotal evidence of the increased attention drive in people with autism. It can explain some of the (also anecdotal) evidence regarding their unusual memory, computation, decision making or image recognition abilities. However, not all autistics are created equal; because of that, researchers talk about Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Some people with ADS have IQs high enough and are communicative enough to perform in psychometric tests, but some are not and we know little about this group’s abilities.

As to the time perception, researchers talk about different parameters. For example, Drs Wallace and Happe at Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, London, UK (Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 2, 2008, 447–455), studied three of them (quote):

a) Time estimation: Using a stopwatch, the experimenter says ‘‘Go’’ and ‘‘Stop’’ after the passage of a pre-designated time period (e.g., 45 s) and subsequently asks the participant to estimate how much time has passed.

b) Time production: The participant is asked to say ‘‘Go’’ and ‘‘Stop’’ when s/he thinks a designated amount of time (e.g., 12 s) has passed.

c) Time reproduction: The experimenter says ‘‘Go’’ and ‘‘Stop’’ after a pre-designated time passage, and then requests the participant to copy this time passage by saying ‘‘Go’’ and ‘‘Stop’’. (unquote).

Perception of shorter periods of time has been investigated previously (Br J Psychology, 95, 2004 269–282). This study showed that people with ASD are somewhat deficient in reproducing intervals of  of 2–3 seconds.

2. Subconscious <-> conscious

It’s a huge theme! There are tons of stunning information about phenomena concerning the two-way exchange, some of which is considered normal, some not. The basis for difficulties of this exchange in normal conditions is similar (I think) to the process of forgetting. Is forgetting bad? In many cases, yes, but normally, it is absolutely necessary for brain’s functioning.

The cases of inability to forget are descried (for example, the brilliant book by Alexander Luria “The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory”). The mind of such people seems to be quite different and their lives are not easy. Looks like people are better off when they respect the normal barrier between these two ways of our mind’s operation. Remember “Be Careful What You Pray for … You just Might Get It”?

However, some of practical psychotechniques can be helpful. I tried the Silva method (The Silva Mind Control Method ) and found it rational. I am aware of the subliminal methods, BTW, extremely successful in the advertising industry.

Read more:
 Working with the subconscious (search results)
 The Silva method
 The Mind of a Mnemonist

Lucid dream – sleep or wakefulness?

Theories of Mind — Tags: , , , , , , — 9:15 am

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QUESTION: Hello. I have a question that is somewhat difficult to categorize, but I had thought if anyone could give me a clue to an answer, someone in your field perhaps could, or come close. I was wondering if you could give me an idea about a possible explanation of something I used to experience years ago.

In case it may help, I was born three and a half months premature.  I was, (as many babies born like me) incubated for quite some time. I’m twenty-five now, with some autistic-related symptoms and  an learning disability – particularly with information processing (tasks, directions, math, etc). When I was a young child (it’s difficult to recall the age, five or six perhaps), I frequently would lie awake in bed (as I often would, being an insomniac) early in the morning or before sleep with particular “visions”, often holograms of three-dimensional, geometric designs. These designs would appear as geometric shapes often very similar to a computer chip, (or something similar with the same type of intricate lines or basic shape). The image would start off at a relatively normal “distance”, and then “zoom” closer, like a video camera zooming in on an object from above. At other times the image was like flying through space. Regarding the “computer chip” example, if you have ever seen the original “Tron” 1980s film, when  one of the characters is being transported to the computer world – and the geometric designs that ensue – That is nearly exactly what I experienced. (For the record, I’d never heard of Tron until about three years ago, which I now love, of course).

As I grew older, the images I would see stopped being literal holograms and resorted to visions I would see in my mind’s eye sometimes when I would close my eyes. I still experience this. There is no particular pattern, and it can happen at any moment I choose to shut my eyes. Sometimes I can will it to happen through focus.

Interestingly, my fiancé experienced the same thing when he was about the same age. (He wouldn’t lie about this and his parents confirmed it). He has always been high functioning autistic, but when he was two and a half he had an accident involving suffocation that has affected the emotional parts of his brain. The only difference between his experiences and mine were that his were not literal holograms, and (separate from the geometric shapes) he would also hallucinate tiny green worms (this stopped for him years ago

Based on your knowledge, what do you think this could have been (in my experience and in my fiancé’s) and why?

Thank you for reading my question (I apologize for any lengthiness). I appreciate your answer to a strange question. I hope you find it as interesting as I do.

ANSWER: Dear Kara,

Thank you for your interesting question and wonderful, poetic description of your experience!

I can see two, maybe different, maybe not so different parts in your question. One is about lucid dreams, the other is about autistic-related symptoms.

It seems that from the neuroscience standpoint, brain areas involved in these two parts overlap. Thus, during lucid dreams, brain cortex activity changes bidirectionally: activity in the prefrontal area (dealing among other things with decision-making and willful actions) is decreased while parietal cortex (e.g., busy with visual processing) is activated (1) – and both are involved in the autistic-related symptoms (2).

Also, the overlapping area involved in the both in autism-related symptoms and dreaming is the brain stem responsible for transmission of information from sensory inputs to the higher levels of brain, where the information is processed finally generating true or imaginative picture of the world. During lucid dreams, since the willful control is loosened, it may form basic patterns like abstract shapes and their movements. The fact that your fiancé experienced the same thing might support this suggestion meaning that it indeed might relate to properties of the brain during sleep when the brain have structural and functional peculiarities, in your case also similar with your fiancé. Just my 2 cents.

Please don’t hesitate asking me further questions if I my answer is not completely satisfactory.

Tanya Zilberter

Sources

1. Hobson, J.A. 2009. “REM sleep and dreaming: towards a theory of protoconsciousness”. Nature Reviews: Neuroscience, 10, 1–11.

2. Neurobiology of autism-related conditions: http://agelessbrain.com/2011/06/neurobiology-of-autism-related-conditions/

QUESTION-2:

 

Thank you so much for your fascinating, detailed answer. Though I do want to make sure I understand you correctly, if that is OK with you.

I am assuming that you recall I stated that I was fully awake when I had these experiences? I know that sometimes dreaming can seem like reality, but I know I was certainly awake – I had not even begun to fall asleep yet (and my for my fiancé it was the same). Were you saying that I was perhaps asleep and didn’t realize it?

Assuming that I was indeed awake, what could this have been? Or did I miss something? I hope my clarification-question hasn’t been of any inconvenience. Thanks.

ANSWER- 2

I cannot be completely sure whether your description means that you were having lucid dreams but I cannot exclude it. The matter is, lucid dream is a dream, in which one is aware about dreaming but is capable of influencing the “plot” of the dream. Because of that, it has been assumed that the dreamer is in fact awake. However, later quite a few researchers recorded eye movements and showed that lucid dreaming is the rapid eye movement phase of real sleep.

From my personal experience, before I really fell asleep, I often find myself watching how my thoughts take their own direction while my role narrows to mere watching, mostly with some pleasure though I cannot explain why it’s pleasant. Do I sleep during this period of time? I don’t know. What I do know is that, for example, Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869 saw his periodical table of elements, whole and complete, in a similar dream. The greatest hit “Yesterday” came to Paul McCartney in a dream, as happened to the idea of chemical transmission of the nervous impulse, for which Dr Loewi won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1936.  I must say, I do not consider myself belonging to this brilliant company <sigh> but I can imagine that these brilliant thoughts came in these great people’s minds through a similar mechanism.

One more thing. With sleep as well as with dieting, there’s the tendency to misreport while being completely sincere. Only impartial lab recording can tell for sure and such recording show that people with sleep problems often sleep more than they think, same way as dieters underreport their calorie intake and overreport their exercise intensity and duration.

Thank you very much for this interesting discussion!

Tanya Zilberter

F1000 and the lactate controversy

Ethics in science,Ketosis, ketogenesis,Lactate,Neuroscience FAQ, Q&A — Tags: — 9:11 am

Q&A and FAQ (archived) :: Ongoing Q&A :: Neuroscience Q&A and FAQ

Question: Hi Tanya,

I am fascinated by development at the Faculty of 1000 started by Y. Ben-Ari. I couldn’t contain myself and posted a comment there. However, I felt a little out of place being just a student arguing with a real scientist. So I still have a couple of questions to ask you.

1. Y Ben-Ari writes there that “Zilberter and Bregestovski and colleagues” dealt with “ketone body metabolites”. What does ketone body metabolite mean? From the articles (Rheims et al., 2009; Holmgren et al., 2010) Y. Ben-Ari refers, I could only find beta-hydroxybutyrate and basing on my textbook, I thought that ketone bodies are metabolized in the brain resulting in CO2, HCO3- and acetone.”]

2. Y Ben-ari argues with your statement and here’s his exact words: “Zilberter and colleagues have suggested that administration of lactate may be “a novel therapeutic tool to cure Parkinson, Alzheimer, Leigh syndrome and epilepsies”. What did you mean the “tool to cure”?

Thank you!

Ingrid

Answer: Hi Ingrid,

The phrase “ketone body metabolites” is used very scarcely and I’ll give you exact usage of it, then I’ll explain what you probably know already from your textbook.

From those authors who use this phrase, most of them refer to the work of Miles et al. (1), the accurate quote of which is: “ketone body metabolites (CO2, bicarbonate and acetone)” (1). Fontain et al. (2) mention ketone bodies metabolites listing them as beta-hydroxybutyric acid and acetoacetic acid, which is not exactly accurate since they both are ketone bodies themselves.

Other than that, the phrase has a different meaning, like this: “Fatty acids and their ketone body metabolites may serve as afferent signals to modulate food intake” (3). Clearly, ketone bodies are meant as metabolites of fatty acids, again a textbook information.

A citation from very recent reference (4): “Ketone bodies, as described here, comprise acetoacetic acid (AcAc), D-3-hydroxy-n-butyric acid (3HB), and acetone.” Note that they are ketone bodies, not ketone body metabolites.

Now, from the textbook (5): In muscle and brain, ketone bodies yield ATP + CO2 (p. 905); Acetoacetate  + H2O -> Acetone + HCO3- (p. 920)

None of the the two articles Y Ben-Ari refers to in his evaluation concerns anything other than beta-hydroxybutyrate, not other ketone bodies, not ATP, CO2 or HCO3-, or acetone.

As to your question number 2, text concerning “therapeutic” might be from (6): “Our hypothesis predicts that the adequate delivery of energy substrates may interrupt this pathological spiral of events and provide therapeutic options targeting the cause of pathologies rather than their symptoms”. However, there’s nothing wrong with this statement  even as it’s cited (excluding of course the words “cure”, which I can hardly imaging being in the Zilberter and coauthors’ vocabulary) and many authors describe and discuss metabolic crisis in connection with neurodegenerative diseases.

1. Miles J et al., (1980) Determination of 14C radioactivity in ketone bodies: a new, simplified method and its validation. J Lipid Res, 21, 646-650.

2. Fontaine M et al. (1996) Acylcarnitine removal in a patient with acyl-CoA beta-oxidation deficiency disorder: effect of L-carnitine therapy and starvation Clinica Chimica Acta 252; 109-122

3. Bray GA “A Guide to Obesity and the Metabolic Syndrome: Origins and Treatment” CRC Press, 2011.

4. Sass JO (2011). Inborn errors of ketogenesis and ketone body utilization. J Inherit Metab Dis DOI 10.1007/s10545-011-9324-6

5. Lehninger, A. L. (2005). in Principles of Biochemistry, 4th Edn, eds D. L. Nelson and M. M. Cox (W. H. Freeman),

690–740.

6. Holmgren, C. D., Mukhtarov, M., Malkov, A. E., Popova, I. Y., , P., and Zilberter, Y. 2010). Energy substrate availability as a determinant of neuronal resting potential, GABA signaling and spontaneous network activity n the neonatal cortex in vitro. J. Neurochem. 112, 900–912.

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