Curious Minds ~ Successful Aging of the Healthy Br Export

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Read the article:
Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain
by Dr. Marian C. Diamond
Join us April 16-29, 2007.
"Dr. Marian C. Diamond is professor of anatomy and one of the world's foremost neuroanatomists and author of the article, Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain."

I wish to welcome Dr. Diamond, in the name of SeniorNet and all participants in this Curious Minds discussion. It is an honor and a privilege to have her share her knowledge with us. I am sure we will learn something new and exciting while we are exchanging together in this endeavor.

There are many questions that we will be asking, experiences we will want to share, myths we know will be clarified and areas of the brain we will explore that we are not familiar with.

Let us start the discussion with a general understanding of what we know about the aging of the brain, then we will focus on specific areas one by one.

Meet Dr. Diamond
“The generally accepted knowledge about the brain is that it starts going downhill fairly early in life, which is true, and that there is little one can do about changing that pattern, which is not true. Increases in cortical growth as a consequence of stimulating environmental input have been demonstrated at every age, including very old age.” -- Marion Diamond

5 Factors Related to a Healthy Brain | | Conversation With Marian Diamond
NEW SCIENTIST MAGAZINE Article about the Brain | | HUMAN MEMORY
Best of the Brain, Five Biggest Neuroscience Developments

Q&A with Dr. Marian Diamond
Discussion Leader: Éloïse De Pelteau

B&N Bookstore | Books Main Page | Suggest a Book for Discussion
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Welcome all participants to the discussion Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain. I am very excited at having this opportunity to discuss such an interesting topic with the author, Dr. Marian Diamond. I think participants will have as many questions to ask as I have. Let's start right now getting the ball rolling so we can all learn something new during the next two weeks.

What do we know about the brain might be something we could start with. Have you ever seen a human brain in an anatomy class? What was your first impression? As for me I would wonder how it feels holding one in my hands, is it soft like a sponge or hard like a muscle? Is it flesh or muscles? If it is neither what is its substance? I was surprised to read that it weighs about 3 pounds, that seemed heavy to me, so it must be quite dense.

Don't forget to read the article by Dr. Diamond, Anatomy Professor at University of California, Berkeley: Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain.

Please think about your questions and post your comments starting Monday, April 16.

I am thrilled that Dr. Diamond has accepted Eloise's invitation to join our discussion of her interesting article! Dr. Diamond is one of the foremost neuroanatomists in the world. According to a quote on the UC Berkeley web site, she is also generous of her time with her students. One of her students wrote: "While she may very well be a 'sung' hero of Berkeley for all of her work, I think she deserves additional accolades for her time spent with students out of the classroom or lab."

I am sure that we can look forward to an engaging discussion as we learn from Dr. Diamond and from one another about this topic of great personal interest... the successful aging of our brain.

What is your experience with retirement?

How did you cope with the change in lifestyle?

Did you find that you had too much time on your hands?

Were your children happy that you had more time to visit with them?

Did you have new ideas that you never had before?

Did you think about what you would do after retirement?

Did you start a business? travel? work on arts and craft?

Did you miss the regular pay check?

These are all questions that I had to ask myself when I stopped working at my regular job. How about you?

I have never been as happy since I retired many years ago..After much thought, my late husband and I decided to live in Florida 1500 miles from where I had lived all my life. The rest is history...22 years of utter excitement and adjustment. I now have been widowed for a little over a year and I am more at peace with myself than in my entire life. Getting used to the idea of not having to worry about anyone but myself, took some doing....but I'm really getting good at it. Now I can come and go as I please...(my preference is staying home)and if the rest of the world feels that I should be doing just the opposite, well they are entitled to their opinion..Live and let live is my motto and I try to live it every day..I try to be kind and help people when asked, but please don't try to take advantage of me nor treat me disrespectfully..I will stand up for my rights to whomever (of course, tempered) This of course, is a small sampling of how some older people are living their lives.and I am loving it so far......

I planned a lot for my retirement, and, even though things didn't work out exactly as I planned, it really helped me.

I had to do a lot of financial planning, since I knew money would be tight. About a year beforehand, I ran the numbers, and said to my family "This is how much we'll have every month when I retire, and we'll have to live on it. We're going to start RIGHT NOW!"

We started to make the adjustments in life style we needed to make at once. This gave us some extra savings, but more important, meant we weren't dealing with financial issues at the same time as all of the other adjustments.

I also decided that my "work ethic" wouldn't let me be satisfied unless I was doing something productive every day. So I made a deal with myself -- I made a permanent "to do" list, and promised that as long as I did that every (or most) days, I would be free to do anything else I wanted. Here it is:

Every day, I have to do:

Something for my spiritual health

Something for my physical health

(Something for my mental health)

Something for my family

Something for my community.

I actually didn't put something for my mental health on the list, because I knew that all the things I wanted to do involved mental stimulation, since that is what I most enjoy. But I added it in () since it certainly belongs.

As it happens, I was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after I retired. But keeping to my "list" all through my treatment really helped me.

The particular things I've done have changed. I have most trouble keeping up with the "physical health" part. I found out the hard way that retirement is fattening! Both the way you eat and the way you exercise (or don't) change completely, and it helps to be much more aware of this, and plan more than I did.

if only lists worked for me. Once I make one I feel like I've done everything on it already and I might lose it as well.

I will never retire since what I do is make art or try to write something or piddle around with music, guitar, old 1918 piano.

Each day requires something new just to keep up here in this condo with desk work, painting bills and following up a gliches, laundry, cooking a little cleaning, not much. maybe reading something or watching c-span which is so interesting lately. If I had to stick with a list I'd feel imprisoned. I like the freedom I have now.

Claire

A doctor told me once that people who work with their minds don't usually retire and that seems reasonable to me.

As my friends on SN know, I hold down a five-day a week job and am active as a volunteer in many ways in my community. I will be 87 this September.
I intend to follow this discussion.

Robby

Good morning, what a pleasure to start this discussion today. I hope you have all read Dr. Diamond's article and have found it, like me, so captivating. I thought at first that I would not understand the intricate relations the brain has in making us see, hear, feel understand, manage emotions, learn languages, communicate, etc. It might be a little too scientific for me but together we will try and shed some light on the matter.

Dr. Diamond says she does not agree that retirement describes well what our life becomes after we leave our job and feels that redirect would be better work to describe the active life most people have after they leave their job. I think it is a much better word myself, thank you Marian, if I can call you by your first name.

JoanK, Welcome my dear. When you said: "It didn't turn out exactly as planned" can I ask you if it turned out better than planned? You are a very well organized woman even when you were ill, and you just move to the West Coast I read somewhere. My eldest daughter moved there lately too, she had lived in the area before and missed it too much, so she went back.

I see the artist in you Claire and I see some of my artistic children when you talk about freedom. Some days I am organized, some days I am not and it gives me a break. I have been redirecting for a very long time now.

Jackie, it's nice to see you, welcome. By "work with their minds" I think I know what you mean, but could you elaborate on this?

We have Robby with us, welcome my friend, I was hoping that you would join us and here you are. For those who don't know him, Robby is a Psychologist still working full time. Looking at your professional work and what you do in your community, I don't think you Can ever retire, you are the best example of "re directing" I ever saw. We are all very interested in learning from you about the "aging of the healthy brain" because of your long exposure to people who seek treatment for mental distress. Your input is invaluable and we are lucky that you will take the time from your busy schedule to take part in this discussion.

dvera- You sound like a delightful retiree. I would enjoy your company. I recently attended a party where each person was encouraged to tell something about themselves. I was struck dumb-founded by how everyone still defines themself as "how many kids" they had or what occupation they held. When it was my turn I avoided both of those facts and focused on living in this community as a retired woman, enjoying the many activities.

Robby is the best example I can think of to illustrate people who work with their minds. Psychiatry is also mind work. Writing, "think tanking", art, all I can think of off the top of my head.

ELOISE, I see some questions in your heading to which I would love to have the answers. Why do we lose short term memory. I find it much harder to learn a new subject, since so much fails to 'stick'. Of course, around here, I generally learn some new fact every day.

It should be of some help that I studied anatomy and phyhsiology as part of my education, so some of the info. on the brain is already 'up there'. And I've read more than one article on activities which stimulate the brain. Actually, participating in SeniorNet discussions is one of my most stimulating activiites!

Babi

Welcome Alf, hahaha, I introduce myself with how many kids I have. You are absolutely right, the life of a woman certainly is not only reserved for what we did in the past, but we seem to latch on to that somehow. Why do we do that?

Hey Babi, good to see you. I can say that my short-term memory has improved since I joined SeniorNet. It didn't happen overnight, I had to exercise it. Writing everyday helps to dig up something in the short term memory to participate in a discussion.

A painter is coming again today, but I will be here when he leaves.

On Page 2 of Dr. Diamond's article emphasizes the 5 elements that keep our brain healthy.

Diet -- Exercise -- Challenge -- Newness -- Love --

First let's look at the graphic of the brain in the heading. How well organized it is and how science has determined what each portion is responsible for in specific areas. I am absolutely awed by it.

Because we only have two weeks to go through the article, I would like us to read it carefully, so we can cover the whole article in the time we have. But feel free to post anything that is important to you as we go along.

I wish that we had more than two weeks for this discussion. There is a wealth of knowledge presented in this article describing visual research of the brain and its functions. It is very user friendly and informative.

I was tickled by her story of teaching students about dendrites and axons with her arms and hands. My Anatomy/Physiology Professor in my first year of nursing school taught us much that same way and I never forgot the importance of the “dendrite” pathways.

”REDIRECT” vs. retirement is an interesting choice of words. I like it and it is not as nullifying as “retirement.” After retirement we are forced to take a different course of direction, in most cases. We manage our lives in a different manner, many times influenced by different people and different responsibilities, causing us to take a different route than we are accustomed to. To me the key has always been “enthusiasm.” I’ll have to ask the doctor which part of the brain I can stimulate to maintain my enthusiasm.

as it should. a few memory lapses of words which come back after a while but are normal. I get depressed when I have a lot of pain. The body hurts a lot and doesn't function very well. . .pain this morning as rough joints get stuck together. This kind of depression is probably normal but it makes me want to die some times.

claire

Dr. Diamond makes it sound like we all started out with our own personal Big Bang!

Eloise, it's a pleasure to join this discussion which itself helps in creating new cells to replace the ones we seem to be losing when those senior moments come along. Wouldn't you know it. All the brainy ones are showing up. Tell it like it is, guys. I can see Dr. Diamond making notes.

She has such a charming way of introducing her subject in trying to get us to change our thinking about the 'rest of our lives', after we've paid off the mortgage and raised the kids. We're not all as lucky as Joan, who still has bills to pay, and keeps herself busy bookkeeping. That must be provided for somewhere in Dr. Diamond's list of 'to dos'.

Granted that retirement seems to have too many negative connotations to serve as a label to stick on those of us who have concluded the 'useful' part of our lives. The redirected life sounds more hopeful, but couldn't it lead to a feeling of regret at having made the wrong choice to begin with? How about resurgence, or revitalization, or is that going into denial over the true course of our lives? How about rebirth? Is that unduly optimistic? Or unavailabel as an option for those unwilling or unable to make a metaphysical leap?

I would like to congratulate Dr. Diamond on a pretty stupendous leap herself, at least something that looks like a leap to me. In the link 'Meet Dr. Diamond', we read this:

'My love affair with the brain started when I was a child growing up in the country. At night, I would look at the stars and wonder where the sky ended.

When I learned that the universe had no end, I wanted something easier, more circumscribed to think about. So I started concentrating on brains and the little bit I knew about them.'

Did it come as a shock to discover that the 100 billion cells in the brain probably out number the stars in the sky? Is the brain perhaps as endless as the universe itself. I find it so charming to hear of a mind redirecting its attention from the starry heavens to the instrument observing them.

It's like you say, Babi. Posting to these discussions is just the stimulation we nee.

Who's in charge here?

As a curious mind since birth in 1918, I have long noted the connection between challenging the mind and observing the responses that only whet the challenge to discover further implications. Another observation: if anything, this response has only increased the more with aging. Thus, I welcome the good Dr. Diamond to this conclave in anticipation of yet further challenge to my continuing personal growth.

As a technical and science writer and editor, my lifetime profession, I trust there will be some discussion of the experiences that tease the imagination to peek beyond the portals of science to what implications might be present as the brain (physical) attempts to interpret the metaphysical. Even as I pose the question I feel that I give "the brain" an id with abilities which I, myself, seem to have. Isn't this hitching the cart before the horse? If, as generally accepted, the brain is an organ, where does mind fit into the whole?

This discussion is off to a great start! FYI, Since Dr. Diamond is still teaching full time at UC Berkeley and conducting research and meeting with students, we're going to make the best use of her time by emailing her your questions about her article.

which controls sensory input have anything to do with my growing deafness and visual problems. . . md, cataracts, blepharitis . . .all related to aging or to my over active immune system which has been attacking my skeleton . . .arthritis spinal sublimation, since my forties. I am now 79 and it's still going strong. are the built in physical problems which seem to be connected with aging in some but not all of us regulated by cells in the brain?

The intellectual part continues unabated. Memory is strange now. I remember the words to pop songs I never learned. typical I guess. Claire

Alf, Yes, "After retirement we are forced to take a different course of direction, in most cases." Something we were not quite prepared to do, mentally pushing the date further and further.

Depression is a serious matter Claire not to be ignored, We hope you will have less pain soon, we care about you. You bring joy in our discussions.

Our own Jonathan has joined in, a big welcome to you. I think the next generation will perhaps do away with the word 'retirement' which seems so final. "Is the brain perhaps as endless as the universe itself?" Who can answer that question?

Does lifestyle alter the brain? BRAIN IMAGES OF THREE ELDERLY PEOPLE One normal, one Alzheimer and one Alcoholic. This really made me think that lifestyle and diet has a trememdour influence on the brain.

I recently retired from designing and implementing computer systems, and moved to CA--two big life changes. I'm now teaching English as a Second Language to adult students in the Bay Area who need to improve their reading, writing and speaking skills. These are intelligent prople with advanced degrees in their native countries, and they are highly motivated. They keep me on my toes mentally! Of the five things mentioned for keeping a healthy brain, "challenge" certainly fits this activity. As complex as computer systems are these days, they cannot nearly equal the complexity of the human brain, although we are still working on it.

I thought that Robby was our oldest at 86, something he has never kept secret, you must tell us what has kept your brain so healthy all those years, we are all ears. Yes, "where does mind fit into the whole?" something we want to know, is mind different than thought?

And Horselover too, we are going to be a large group interested in knowing more about the brain.

I take it that Boyd is not 19 but 91. lol

I have played Bridge with a woman in her nineties, and she could remember every card that was played. I think genetics has the greatest role in how our brains age, although the other factors mentioned can contribute to healthy aging.

I am extremely sad about the shooting this morning at Virginia Tech University killing 33 people and wounding several. I am sure everybody feels a heavy heart at this time thinking about friends and relatives of the victims. My deepest sympathy goes to all of them.

As Boyd was born in 1918, two years before I was born, I surmise that he 88 or 89. In any event, he is my elder and I yield to his wisdom.
As for the five elements cited by Dr. Diamond - diet, exercise, challenge, newness, and love -- here is my life style. While I was taking my doctorate, I also took a couple of courses in gerontology and found that statistically vegetarians lived longer. I don't know if this is true but I decided to wean myself off red meat and with very rare exceptions have not eaten pork, beef, or lamb for over 25 years. I am not a 100% vegetarian and eat primarily salads, fruits, and fish.
As for exercise, I walk around the hospital grounds four times almost every morning which equals two miles. I still do ballroom dancing whenever the opportunity presents itself, including swing as well as the slower dances.
I don't quite know how to react to the word "challenge." I still have the curiosity I had as a boy and take on new community volunteer activities from time to time. I handle the public relations for the local community theatre, am on the board of the local Red Cross chapter, and just joined the local youth organization. I have been on the board of the state psychological association for a number of years so that is not new.
Newness? I'll just wait and see what presents itself.
Love?I am single and live alone but look at the overall meaning of that word, starting with loving myself, but not in the sense of vanity.
I guess I am saying that I just live one day at a time.

Robby

What is your experience with retirement?
Haven't retired although I have slowed down - cannot afford to retire - being divorced at 60 after 40 years of marriage I ended up with a house I was not willing to sell - plus I like my job - I like solving problems that affect other people's dreams and daily living - I like meeting new people and keeping abreast of changes in the community and in the law - I like that I can guide folks into making more of their investment in property and that the house they choose will affect the relationship between family members just because of how rooms and traffic patterns are arranged.

How did you cope with the change in lifestyle?
The change in lifestyle was more about living alone - there are many pluses and many disadvantages - the plus is I never think twice about doing what I want to do - the disadvantage is not having someone who you want to make happy or please and therefore you will do things that are actually good for yourself. I often feel selfish doing for myself with no one but me reaping the benefits.

Did you find that you had too much time on your hands?
I easily become so overwhelmed with so much I want to do and that there is to do - that I shut down and then do not get half done what I should or could - grousing the whole time about a lack of energy - ah so I do not take into consideration I should be anything less than I was at 35 or 45.

AND I get so angry with folks who retire - sheesh - life is full and good and they have skills that are valuable and they shut themselves off from those who they can serve. grrrrr I really got angry when my accountant retired - he is a strong healthy man, a graduate of West Point - ethical and a whiz with my tax returns and he retires???

Were your children happy that you had more time to visit with them?
I like visiting my kids and grands but I do not think it is good for them or me to visit more than I do - since they live a great distance away I spend two weeks at Christmas in the Spring and the Fall with my daughter and a week at Thanksgiving, in the summer and long weekends every other month with my son. They need to develop their family - it is too easy for them to focus on my visit rather than build their family memories - plus after awhile they are boring - I did all they are doing back when my kids were the age of their kids. And I do not need their friends to be my friends - I would have to move to their city to have the time to create my friends and I prefer living in Austin.

Did you have new ideas that you never had before?
Always have new ideas - doing something about them is a different story.

Did you think about what you would do after retirement?
Oh yes, thought I would be my picture of a Grandma who did lots of baking, knitting, jam making - now that I am that age I want so much more and keep thinking when I am old that is what I will do - now I understand my grandmother who at 96 said the ladies down the hall were old when they were in their 80s but she didn't consider herself old - she lived to be 99.

Did you start a business? travel? work on arts and craft?
I still have plans for a long distant hike - need to get a few more things done to my house before I can put the money together to take my hike.

Did you miss the regular pay check?
the kind of work I do I never did have a regular paycheck - I do get Soc Sec and a small wee monthly stipend that is a small chunk of the retirement I would have received as a married lady - it is enough though to pay my car loan and out of my Soc Sec I pay a mortgage I had to take out to pay for the divorce. Now that it has increased it also pays for my car insurance. The rest I must earn. I think regardless the kind of work arrangement you experienced before 65 there are so many kinds of self employment opportunities or even serious volunteer situations where you can make a difference so that to me this concept of acting old and being retired is giving up on yourself and all the skills you have developed for 40 years. Even if you pay the $150 or more and have a resume done to me would be a way to realize all the skills that you develop and had not even realized - to let that all fall fallow seems a waste and not honoring your own past efforts towards creating who you are today.

diet, exercise, challenge, newness, and love

diet? I try but find that I still love beef . . .raw, and it seems to love me too.

exercise and challenge are almost the same thing now that i’m old and stiff and everything hurts, but . . .I try. up and down my hall sometimes and I’ve just discovered that using a cane helps.

newness . . yes anything in my realm of art, music, politics. the c-span coverage of the congressional hearings is fascinating. I'm an excitement junky and NEW is exciting for me.

love . . .hey it’s easy for me to love my friends although some don’t find it as easy to love me back.

love is being generous with others not only with material things but with attention and caring. Yeah love is where it’s at. the best part of me.

claire

evidently all that red meat is good for me. I know that the iron in it is more readily accessible raw than cooked. It's easier to digest that way too. So I can stop feeling guilty about THAT.

claire

diet, exercise, challenge, newness, and love

Mmmmmm. Love, thank goodness, I have, thanks to my wonderful family. Since I just moved 3000 miles from where I've lived most of my life, I have plenty of newness in my life just now, and I really like it. I thought I was doing new things before, but it seems to me now that I was in a rut.

Challenge: I've faced many challenges in the year since my husband died, but not the kind I want to build into my life. Before that, I found the Latin course, and leading discussions to be a challenge. But I need to be sure and add challenges.

Like Claire, exercise is painful, and is a challenge I am not meeting well enough. Once a week chair yoga class isn't enough. Getting out of my wheelchair and walking is painful and difficult, but I know if I did it more, it would become less so. But I do it for a few days, and stop. My sister and I have a pact, we will both exercise. She is doing much better than me. Diet goes with that: when I exercise, I also eat better.

I even have dumbbells I don"t use. they make a nice sculptural display on top of a chest i my room. I look at them regularily. lol

claire

Barbara, When I lived on the East Coast and my daughter and garndkids lived in CA, I felt the same as you do about visiting. But now that I live nearby, I realize that I used to be just a sometime visitor in their lives, and sort of a stranger to my grandkids. Their lives would change so much from one visit to the next. These days, I am a constant part of their lives. We are truly an extended family, there for each other when the need arises, and sharing joys and setbacks. Fortunately, my daughter and I are good friends; ditto my son-in-law. The kids love having a grandmother they actually know, and I love helping them learn and watching them grow.

When my daughter's boys were little they lived here in Austin so I know what you mean Horselover - but my experience has been I had more time with them when I visit while they live these great distances away - I was there morning noon and night - from bath time right through the day.

Where as when they lived in town it was a couple of hours every few days - oh lots of impromptu happenings - my daughter and her husband had their life and friends while I had mine - when I visit now it is total - great, and I love it but it would be too much - as if I was part of the family - I would not like to be restricted which is how I would see it if I was part of the family - I do not want family life to be my total existence and so maintaining my own life with them in town I would not see any more of them and probably less of them than when I visit for a full day's experience everyday for a couple of weeks or in my son's case a week at a time -

When he lived in Oregon I visited for two week stays four times a year as well but since he is up in Lubbock I run up more frequently but for short bursts and they visit me for various events - Maybe it is because I married young with no time to be me that I need this time to be me. I was married a year out of High School and since my Mom had my brother and sister late in life I was the caretaker for them - my sister who was just younger than I was the student and that seemed to be her job - in fact I had no idea, there was a time when my kid sister thought I was her secret mother - when I left the house she was 4 years old and she was devastated.

I like my independence and where I love my time with my grands I would not like living with them - as I say, living nearby I do not think I would see them much more - more often yes, more time together to really get to know each other - I am not convinced.

As to the suggestions that make a healthy brain for old age - hmmmm I have to question a few - as a depression kid we may have eaten food without chemicals but not a lot of healthy food - and it was the way if you were not breast fed to keep a baby on sugar water for the first two years of their life - so childhood healthy eating????

And nurturing - well some of us were brought up in pretty abusive situations on top of which I knew nothing but fear for most of my childhood - touching didn't happen - I remember to this day the first time I was ever comforted because I was scared was a Nun who hugged me when I was in the second grade - Now that was my blessing in life - that I got a first class education and was sent to the Catholic School which for me was not the house of horrors that some kids must have experienced when they talk about their Catholic School education. The best my mom could do was put her hands on my feet if I was ill - ah so - and yet, because of all she endured and what she meant to me and things she did teach me I loved her. She expressed her love in her sewing of all our clothes, and preserving whatever she could grow or find to can and as I said making sure I went to a good school.

I just think some of us are blessed with a strong ability to take life and do something with it and some of us are blessed with a higher ability to learn and think creatively - some of us become stronger because of life's stresses and other's of us the stress drains but I also think there are aspects of family heritage that come into play.

I remember reading a book a few years ago about how strong the stock is of those of us who are living today considering that our ancestors lived through the plague that wiped out 3/4ths of Europe's population and all sorts of wars and degradation that was typical of the fifteenth and sixteenth century.

I also think within us we pass on certain traits of various family strains - I notice my son who never met his grandfather is in many ways like him, eats like him and already is showing signs of digestive problems and heart problems where as my daughter is similar to my grandmother who she met when she was a baby - it is this grandmother who lived a hearty life till she was in her mid 90s when she fell and broke her hip but continued on till she was 99.

They are both creative thinkers but my son is dyslexic which limited his education - I am amazed at how successful he became with this handicap - he did not have the educational advantages of today's dyslexic kids - where as my daughter has her collage degrees and is very creative in solving life's problems.

Their father had more formal education than I did [I did not get to college till my two older kids were in Jr. High] - he was/is not a creative thinker and at 76 is on oxygen all the time. He cannot even walk his dog any longer much less play golf. His childhood was far healthier than mine - I know you do not refute stats with a couple of individual stories but my story does not fit the profile suggested of keeping a healthy brain.

What is your experience with retirement?

Left where I worked after thirty years with a pension and intended to redirect my life to sales of watkins, fullerbrush, stanley products,amway and avon and had invested in them but things did not turn out the way I thought they would as I found out I had cancer so had the operation, doctor said he got it all. Then my mother needed me so spent twelve years doing what my mother needed me to do.

Have done much volenteer with many clubs and now s/n so keeping my brain, and body busy.

No I did not miss the regular pay check because my pension was enough to cover things as my house was paid for when I was working and I paid cash for a new van when I left where I was working. I have very good medical insurance through where I worked they paid for most of the cancer operation. Now with medicare and my insurance my stay in the hospital when I had my stroke in 2005 was paid for "mostly" by both insurances and I came out fine as the hospital reversed the stroke because my neibors got me to the hospital in time for the reversal so will add get to the hospital in time as it does make a differance.

Love to to travel and make make new friends and I do with senior net and the red hatters.



Wandrin' Around  

Put me in a new direction.  
Point me to the edge of the world  
With a warm heart and cold complexion  
I'm feeble with a flag unfurled  
Where's to today?  
Miles away  

Chorus:  
And as I sigh my long goodbye,  
what will be found wandrin' around?  
And as I sign the long goodbye,  
what will be found wandrin' around?  

Sister, where you going?  
I have one question, maybe three  
Sister is it showing?  
We race away from who we used to be  
Where to today?  
Miles away

Interesting Facts about the Brain

Your brain uses 20% of your body's energy, but it makes up only 2% of your body's weight.

Your cerebral cortex is about as thick as a tongue depressor. It grows thicker as you learn and use it.

Your brain is about 1300-1400 cubic centimeters in volume, about the size of a cantaloupe and wrinkled like a walnut.

The brain feels like a ripe avocado and looks pink because of the blood flowing through it. bbb Your brain generates 25 watts of power while you're awake---enough to illuminate a lighbulb.

A newborn baby's brain grows almost 3 times in course of first year Humans have the most complex brain of any animal on earth.

Your brain is divided into two sides. The left side of your brain controls the right side of your body; and, the right side of your brain controls the left side of your body.

Toxins in commonplace items such as carpeting and shower curtains may be contributing to memory loss over time?

Overexposure to aluminum compounds—in foil, cookware, deodorants, antacids, toothpaste—can affect brain function

Lavender can help you sleep

A cooked potato can jump-start your brain when you're feeling foggy. The essential oil of jasmine can quickly restore mental alertness

Eating foods rich in vitamin E, beta-carotene, and vitamin C may help lower your risk of Alzheimer's disease.

Certain prescription and nonprescription drugs may dramatically affect your ability to concentrate.

owwww I love potatos and had no idea oil of jasmine can make you more alert - thanks for those tips.

Good morning, I am so happy to see so many posts in the discussion this morning, besides it's raining instead of snowing outside and that's an improvement over yesterday.

I have been thinking about what everyone has contributed to increasing our knowledge of the brain.

Dr. Diamond put Diet at the top of her list to keep the brain healthy and that is no surprise because what we eat is directly responsible for replacing the cells we lose every day.

"Yes, diet is vital to the brain just as it is to our body as a whole. For the brain to grow healthily from infancy, it certainly needs protein to maintain and develop its nerve cells and their branches throughout life.... you have millions of nerve cells and, stemming from them, as you can see, are what we refer to as branches or "processes," specifically they are called "dendrites." The article will often mention dendrites so it is good to remember where they are and what they do.

I am not surprised that you have new ideas BarbaraI wish I could do as much as you do because I tend to stay in too much instead of going for a walk every day. I do go out to aqua gym twice a week, but if it weren't for helping my daughter's family I would have to "find a job" to make me get out more. I see my two sisters a lot, they are both very active too.

Serious artistic pursuits certainly contributes to mental exercise Claire just as writing I believe, because you have to plan ahead, choose the right color and material, accomplish a canvas that has beauty, harmony and balance, a piece that speak to your inner soul. I tried pastel portraiture at one time and gave it up.

When I have time I will take up Latin JoanK that should shake up my intellect a lot. I wonder how I would fare though.

Horselover My son-in-law who live downstairs and me are very good friends, and I would even say we love each other. I couldn't stand it otherwise, I would have to move away I think. Where did you see that information about Interesting facts About the Brain? it is very interesting.

Oh! Ginger, what a beautiful poem and it even talks about a "new direction" that we are all involved in here in SeniorNet Books. I love it. It takes strength of character to go through what you have gone through, does it mean that difficult problems either make you or break you I wonder?

I find the 'exercise' part of Dr. Diamond's list the one where I fall behind. Part of it is health problems, but probably most of it is a lifetime habit of sedentary pursuits. Like sitting at a computer? Reading. Crosswords. Needlework (formerly). TV. And my desk jobs career!

Babi

Be patient and understanding with the likes of those of us who have chosen retirement.
After working since age 14 in a hospital and retiring as an RN I had truly seen enough of misery, sadness, coping and affliction to last me another 50 years. There comes a time when you become the sponge for this adversity and reach for the the "brighter side" of life. My guilt for leaving my wonderful skills behind with my white uniforms was short lived. I feel my skills can serve me in a more joyful way. I will admit, it is not the same but it will suffice.

"Dendrites do not simply receive information that comes into the nerve cell. Once the information has been process then it stimulates an electrical impulse that travels down to the nerve cell body. The impulse leaves the nerve cell body in a process called the axon, which carries the impulse to a target tissue." from Dr. Diamond's article.

I seems that this is very important in understanding what will come after:

"When the impulse reaches the axon terminal, a chemical is liberated which crosses the gap known as the synaptic gap and stimulates the receptors on the adjacent dendrites"

If the synaptic gap is not bridged what happens to the adjacent dendrites? do they just atrophy and die?

How do you understand this? Much of the explanation is found in the article, we have to read it slowly and I read it often so it will stick.

Rats are intelligent in that they can learn very quickly to run mazes and press levers but they do not create things that have never before existed. So it's not quite legitimate to make so many assumptions based upon the abilities of rats brains when considering ours.

Mine is good in the creative departments and functions well enough elsewhere. The physical aspects are all related to my age. I'm 79 almost twenty years older than Barb. When I was sixty I was a "junior-senior citizen" and much more active than I am now.

It took me five months to wheedle a continuting drivers license out of the DMV and at that my eyesight keeps me off of freeways as I can't see the lane markers very well, so my trip to the ear,nose and throat doctore about twenty miles away yesterday took and hour each way and boy did my back hurt. It has subluxation of the spine and hates the car seat.

I never knew I would become in continent and that happened about a year ago. Those menstral pads work well but are uncomfortable.

I needed a cane to get me from the parking lot throught the hospital corridores to the doctors offices yesterday with many pauses to breathe since I now have congestive heart failure and like that husband who is 76 can't walk the dog, so I don't have one anymore and I love dogs. RETIRE from a life style if not a job is a necessity for many of us at a certain age.

barbara do get off your soap box. You may be lucky as many are. But at your age I was FINE.

Claire gimpy old lady with really painful arthritis and other problems. GERD anyone?

Claire

p.s. I still do what I do. paint, read, watch TV, write, follow the news and especially the politics. There is no such thing as RETIREMENT from a LIFE STYE based on these things. Vision and hearing are on their way out but there are "work arounds".

Difficult problems have made me stronger. Be back soon

Claire, that's right, animals can't create art, but the article explains what elements of the brain were experimented on rats to determine/prove the "successful aging of the healthy brain". To me a scientifically documented experiment is legitimate and revealing. Doctor Diamond has proven the validity of her experiments in a lifetime of research in the field and in laboratories around the world. I trust her entirely.

After being careful about my health since I was in my twenties, I am 80 now, I think some of it payed off. I have nothing worse than low thyroid function and osteoporosis. My mother used to say: "Your health is in your plate", moderation in everything was her moto. She died at 95.

We all have our own lifestyle and illness comes at any age, if we are healthy it could be genetic as well as being careful it is not one OR the other. I have twin daughters who are type 1 diabetes, two sisters and a granddaughter, they all have normal weight. Why am I not diabetic? I don't know.

We will go more deeply into diet because the articles mentions interesting things I wish to bring up.

Scroll to #4 to read about Dr. Diamond study of Einstein's Brain

I have often wondered whether there is something about my brain that has made me a skeptic when it comes to psychics, fortune tellers, a spirit world, UFOs, aliens, prophesies, and even the religion "god" business.

Nor am I good in the creative department of art and music.

I do find that I am not alone in that department which is encouraging and tends to keep me on the skeptic's path.

Ginger, thanks for the most interesting link in your post, 48. I skimmed it rapidly, and picked out that little quote from Dr. Diamond's study. Doesn't that make you feel sorry for Dr. Einstein, ending up in a mayonnaise jar that way? For science, he is probably telling himself.

This is the heavy stuff. Some of her other stuff is just as interesting, but makes less demand on ones brain. Take for example the idea at the beginning of her Healthy Brain article, with which she suggests that a democratic society is conducive to brain excellence. Does that mean that someone living in a tyrannical society is seriously disadvantaged? What makes the difference?

It's an awesome display of brainpower that's showing up in the posts. Keep it up. The question was raised,

Is my brain to blame for my impaired hearing and vision that has come with time?

That's a good one for Dr. Diamond. Far be it from me to try second guessing her, but I suspect it is an info-processing brain saying, 'enough already'.

'Are there brains that can deal only with reality?'

I can't wait to hear what Dr. Diamond has to say to that. Do you want to know what I think? I think she is going to say to Ray, if you have a problem with the 'god business', you're going to have real fun with that other ghost in the brain. The mind. The mind in the brain is like god in the big picture. Well, until the doctor gets here we'll just have to speculate. Really, or otherwise. Have you noticed that a small item of the brains structure is referred to as a bulb? So, what we always thought of as a metaphor, does in fact happen. A light can come on.

We're starting off our dialog with Dr. Diamond by asking her two questions from this discussion:

--#1. If, as generally accepted, the brain is an organ, where does mind fit into the whole? -Boyd19

-- #2. Are the built in physical problems which seem to be connected with aging, in some but not all of us, regulated by cells in the brain? -Winsum

Dr. Diamond has responded:

#1. Your group certainly starts with an age old question which has many, many interpretations. My answer is a simple one - the mind is a product of the brain which manifests itself in the form of behavior. The brain affects the mind just as the mind affects the brain. Some people want to get rid of the term mind all together and substitute behavior.

#2. The brain is just one organ in the body that regulates the physical problems connected with aging. Many of the endocrine organs play a role, example, the thyroid, adrenal glands, pituitary gland. Then such systems as the cardiovascular system, and respiratory system, etc. play a role, all interacting one way or another. There is a good reason all our organs are wrapped together in this covering called skin.

Do you have follow up questions for Dr. Diamond about these responses or other questions?

Hay I am not in my 60s I am 74 and my good friend Charlotte is 88 and can work rings around me - she has had both knees and her hip done and yet, gets around affecting legislation and a large community of movers and shakers centered around Gray Panthers.

I am speaking my views not telling anyone else what to do - Clair I am sorry you have terminal illness - the 76 year old I spoke of was a heavy smoker but I was also suggesting the difference in how folks age

And yes, I am a gorilla when it comes to folks who deny a community their best efforts - if that sounds like a soap box - so be it - that is my views - I just do not think we were given the opportunities in life that allowed us to develop various skills to keep that to ourselves - if not through a job then some community involvement to me is our responsibility - however, for me I have to work - if I had a choice I do think I would still work because I love what I do - I am also in the unique position of being able to slow down and not work as hard as I once did - I have learned to take more time to do things like garden and now every Wednesday my friend Charlotte and I have dinner together and I have another young friend and we usually have either dinner or a drink on Friday evening - and so my life is busy.

There are times I get down and it takes me a couple of weeks to get out of the hole but I find each time I am needed to help someone magically I answer the call and this gets me going so that I feel more optimistic. Last summer was particularly difficult and so I built a garden of 3 large beds in my front yard - I got lots of exercise since I had to use a pickax to dig into the rock that I live on - haul in all that dirt - since I live on one of the busier entry streets into this area and across from a large 10 acre middle and grade school campus there were lots of folks stopping by to chat. Some regularly on their evening walk - it was just the medicine I needed and since my son was such the landscaper the gardens are in his memory.

All to say - my life is not a bowl of cherries and all I do is share what I do to make my life more meaningful - I want to die used up and as I said I was brought up during a time when we learned that we are not alone and we have an obligation to share our talents with our community - a community can be small or large - a couple of neighbors or a whole area.

One of the best ways I have found to keep up with my neighbors is I volunteered [and they pay you a bit] to help with the voting - it is fun to see folks you do not see all year except when we are voting for something. I also meet the new people who have moved into our area and who are voting.

You may like to try it - just call the party of your choice - here they like to have representatives of both parties at the polls and you can do it for part of a day or the whole day.

One of my grandsons - bright as can be - took his SATs in 6th grade and came out in the 94percential of the nation - he could have walked into college then - anyhow he had a serious problem in that the synaptic gap was not functioning - I do not have the language down - I remember the words synaptic gap - he had a couple of years of focused work with a machine where he had to train his thoughts - he and his Dad worked with this machine every evening - I wish I remembered more because I did not know this is something that is part of all of our physical makeup allowing our thoughts to govern our body.

Now it more than makes sense when they speak of changing behavior with positive thinking - Have any of you seen the movie "The Secret" - as much as many like to make in fun of the concept it is all about attracting to you based on thinking the thoughts that are beneficial and making sure you focus on what in life you are grateful for. You can watch the movie on-line for $4.95 - it takes 90 minutes and if you need to stop in the middle and pick it up in a day or two later you can do that - after reading some of what is being shared that movie is making more and more sense to me...!

My brain exercise is to find things around me, figure out how it works or is made ..Tie things to basic physics , chemistry or logic..Call me a practical skeptic..But even a good skeptic must keep an open mind. Are there UFO's , people see lights moving in the sky that we cant positively identify ,SURE. Are they controlled by alien beings???? Naaa! Inquiring minds is what we are here.

My brother has had a great concern about his memory loss problem .. His Dr. is treating with B12 shots .. He has become dependent on the shots.. Is there any medical proof ?

Hmmm if the skin is what ties us all together - all the working parts including our brain then I can see how a massage is really helping us - that relaxing work would be reaching our brain - cool

I often stop at the Whole Foods for a 20 minute back massage which costs me only $18 - not only am I taking care of stressed out muscles and tendons but I am feeding my brain - wow...

I thought B12 was for countering depression - did not know it helped short term memory as well -

Thank you Dr. Diamond for you response. I think the questions about the word mind evolving into behavior makes a lot of sense. I was always wondering about it.

Thank you Ginger for the link to Doctor Diamond's article about Einstein's brain. Poor man if he had only known that when he was alive.

Ray Welcome to this discussion. Perhaps we can ask Dr. Diamond about skepticism, shall we?

Welcome Rockfl, I am happy that you joined our discussion. We will come to short term memory later when it is mentioned in the article. I am anxious to learn too about that too. It is irritates me to start looking for something I just held in my hand and put it somewhere I don't remember. We are asked to exercise our memory to keep it healthy. Bridge is a good game for that and fortunately a lot of people enjoy the game as they get older.

What a vibrant discussion this is, keep coming in with your fabulous posts everyone.

Jonathan, The bulb

in the brain is a good word as it works well just think of how many times we are thinking of some thing and sudenly the answer comes.

Feel sorry for Enstien I don't think so as they must have got permission from someone, Don't know much about him except he is said to be very intelligent in some thing but I forgot what, will someone turn on the bulb in my brain

That is an interesting question that you've posed. I would be interested in Dr. Diamonds response. Also, is there any evidence or any on-going studies that prove the efficacy of Vitamins or supplemental minerals in preventing the aging of the brain?

Eloise, You are welcome for the link as I found it interesting.

Making people smile, laugh is good for both the giver and the recievers mental and physical health I think and did so today while at the pharmacist saying that retirement was a goverment word and I was not retired just redirected. Everyone LOL and seemed to feel better as I know I felt better bringing a smile to peoples faces.

I don't know if this is a true story, but it is a fun description of a day in the life of a retiree.

"The Sixth Sense - Sense of Humor"

Ray and rockfl - I am just wondering - if our brain affects our mind and our mind affects our brain then, that says to me what we think affects our brain. It sounds to me like there is a system or road of connecting thoughts that make a connection with the rest of our organs.

And so if you think that everything you experience must show a scientific explanation or at least an explanation that has logic based in reality then it would follow that your brain would accept that truth wouldn't it - and those who believe in the mysteries of life would be sending those thoughts from their mind into their brain which would affect the rest of their organs to pick up sensations that are logical to mystery.

In other words it isn't that some brains have or do not have the capacity to believe the unseen but rather, we think and that is what is accepted by our brain, heart, lungs, liver etc. etc. That somehow what we choose to think is the basis for who we become - what experiences or training that has influenced our thinking becomes who we are.

Seems to me this information about the brain is suggesting how we think affects our entire body. Makes Mary Baker Eddy a visionary before her time.

As much as it was a brain teaser to come up with this line of thinking it could be wrong and so it will be interesting to hear Dr. Diamond's response.

Pat that was a good one, thanks.

the combination of endocrine and other bodily functions are controlled and regulated by areas of the brain. But it varies from person to person.. The brain seems to me to be the source of all body functions including the mind, Which I think of as a BLACK BOX. We know what goes in and what comes out . . . but exactly . . what is happening INSIDE continues to puzzle us. Knowing the clinical aspects of the brain still doesn't seem to account for what goes on in the mind. drugs affect what areas are active and inactive but . . .how much and how related to input. . .winsum

Like what kind of mind did the shooting in Va. tech.

Ginger I have been mulling what you brought up - what kind of mind - but what was confusing is how the same action is or is not acceptable - we are aghast, astounded and horrified with the actions that killed 34 at V. Tech - we are aghast and horrified but no longer astounded when 34 Shia or Sunni or killed by an individual who does not use a gun but instead wraps him or herself in dynamite - we are saddened by not necessarily horrified or aghast when 34 soldiers are killed during war and we do not even register a blip on our emotional screen when we learn that 34 met their death in one day in highway accidents.

The registering of these various deaths seem to affect our thinking differently - I also think that is why some of these deaths affect our nervous system as well as other organs in our bodies - but more I am thinking of those who are the perpetrators of these deaths -

Why do we see the shooter at V.Tech as deranged and we see a terrorist less than human and yet, we are angry but not in the same way when someone is at fault for killing someone on the highway? Now on the battle field I can understand we train soldiers to kill and to be aware they can be killed - and so there is not the element of surprise or random unexpected death. And yet, we know some soldiers react to their experience with what is now labeled Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Does that mean their thinking has not been altered enough to affect their brain and all their bodily functions to accept being killed or killing another?

Is it that the deaths caused by someone like the young man at V.Tech was random and unexpected that makes us think he was deranged - I am really curious as to how we sift through the intent we want to associate with various scenarios that bring about similar results.

I am not considering moral judgment just curious if our thinking is socialized in common agreement and are there certain outcomes that no matter how we judge them affect us in a primitive way of thinking that no matter how much we are socialized to think differently some of us cannot over-ride something that is basic. Is that basic thinking part of our physical makeup - in our DNA so to speak or is all thinking learned.

I can see how learning can be altered if the body or the brain are not functioning as they were intended but how much does thinking affect how we accept our actions or for that matter govern our actions. Does simply having a healthy brain mean there will be only right minded moral thoughts active in the mind within the brain?

I guess in more words than are needed I am curious about Claire's "Black Box" - what causes some to have a mind that makes thoughts come out in different behavior when everyone had the same information going in - or maybe, that is part of it - we do not all receive the same information just as we do not all share the same experiences. Is that why we see a different reaction by many sharing in one same experience?

I would shoot someone if it was them or me but what kind of mind (people) kill other wise?

That most mysterious of all human functions. We have for so long taken for granted that the mind is created by the brain that we overlook the possibility that the mind is not even in or of the brain but instead perhaps the brain is in the nature of a mirror or interpreter of the mind. The mind may be a phenomenon that is common to everyone, an out-of-this-world (non-physical, other-dimensional) overself of which we partake as the occasion demands. Just as a polished mirror reflects the sun and yet is not the sun, so the brain would reflect that other reality that is not directly reachable.

While this may seem far-fetched and without any foundation whatever in science, neither has science yet accounted for the exact nature of Mind. I would suggest that recent quantum discussions have brought us within shouting distance of just such possibilities. We might liken the brain to have a function yet undiscovered, existing above that of governing all the bodily material-universe functions, to include that of translation between this universe and the invisible reality beyond space-time. This would suggest that memory is not stored in the brain, but instead is "stored" or simply "exists" in that next dimension, like some of the functions of software in a nuts-and-bolts computer chip.

Certain nodal areas in the brain can be touched, and the "patient" sees a replay of something that happened in his childhood. The scientist says, "It triggered the neurons to give back the images." But so far as I can find in the literature, no one has actually shown that the memories are, indeed, stored in the intricacies of our three pound mass of cells, neurons, and dendrites. I can touch certain points in the heart of a television receiver with a test-prod leading to an oscilloscope, and see certain responses which I can interpret to reveal whether the television is performing as it should (I have in the past been a television repairman --before the days of recycling a faulty one and buying a new one at less cost than repairing it.) We have similar things being done with the brain which we term bio-learning or retraining, although so far I don't think we have reached the point of recycling even the "brain" of a worm, much less that of a human being.

In any case, the possibilities are fascinating to me - others may not find them so. For myself, I can only bewail that I have used so little of my brain over my lifetime, and exercised it so infrequently by real thinking, that it tends to need a new set of "batteries" (energy-cells, to all you dry-cell users). Now if someone will only clue me in on where to insert the new ones...

we wouldn't have thought so much of it. We are now USED to that form of killing. It's been going on in Israel for years before we were ever confronted with it in Iraq.

My first thought was "when are they going to start blowing themselves up like the terrorists do. It's more efficient than piece meal shooting.

so maybe the pleasure is in the doing and a bombing is over to quickly. Maybe this young man likes to KILL. He was angry about many things that related to the school. He EXPLODED with it. As for his own life, his anger carried him well beyond caring about it. He couldn't even carry out his bombing plan. I think he wasn't rational at all any more. just driven to grab his new guns and start shooting them. . . once started it was all self-stimulation and the targets were anything that MOVED..

so that's how I see it. I'm too used to killing. I hate the loss of life in Iraq and even here. To get even more upset than I am isn't likely unless one of my own were the victim. It's all BAD BAD BAD news.

Claire

I know a lot of elderly people suffer from depression. It has been scientifically proven that gardening and handling soil increases seratonin to the brain and also endorphin production. I knew that gardening was therapeutic by my own experiences but I never knew until I heard a documentary on our Radio NZ nine to noon program that it was scientific fact. Something to really think about!

I keep my brain going by reading a lot. Doing word games. Interacting with my grands by helping with schoolwork etc and of course using my PC and joining in discussions here. I have been amazed at what I can do if I put my mind to it. Lack of confidence I think puts a lot of seniors off trying something new like computing.

carolyn

my mind keeps me awake at night and almost always has something in mind

It can be a curse to have so much activity going on.

Claire

I think I'll try to draw FLOWERS.

Like always, Boyd, your post is in depth. But what makes you say something like the statement I have quoted from your post? If it is your mind, then mind has to be something greater than the brain. The something more than the sum of all its parts? Was the assessment, or the achievment rating a behavioral function of the brain, as suggested by Dr. Diamond in her reply regarding mind? I believe the idea was that the scientific community tends to look at mind as brain behavior. What possible technology could they be using to measure something like...say purposeful behavior such as resulted in 33 deaths yesterday.

But that's hardly to the purpose. The discussion is about the healty brain, and how we can keep it that way as we navigate the later years of our lives. I want to recognize my friends, remember my pin, avoid delusions and illusions, read a book...etc.

ALF asks about the possibility of preventing the aging of the brain. It must be possible. Or, at least it has been shown to be possible, judging by the posts. You gotta put your mind to it. I'll put my money on mind. It's a power unto itself. And it has friends in high places. But that's another story.

I have an older friend (83) who, lately, is experiencing a springtime of renewed mental vigor. He lives by himself and takes care of himself. He swears it's the sardine lunch he has several time a week. He was told, he tells me, that fish is food for the mind. Is it the fish, or the mind itself, that is doing it for him?

Could one depart this life insisting that ones brain let one down? I would like to ask Dr. Diamond if there is any way of measuring the promise seen in young people?

The two fish oils help feed the blood supply to the body including the brain. The fish oils are Omega 3 and Omega 6. There are some supplements that are marked as "brain food." Check out the local health store. Our brain capacity can deteriorate by experiencing decreased blood flow to the vessels in the brain.

Carolyn

The brain needs protein for better performance, and that starts before a baby is born with a mother having adequate protein intake. After laboratory experiments, "it was clear that a protein rich diet is vital to grow healthy nerve cells which can respond positively to enriched living conditions".

"It is well validated that choline is extremely important in the diet. Dietary source of choline is: Soybeans and their soy products, like tofu, egg yolks, peanuts, liver.

Acetylcholine is only one of the 100 different neurotransmitters. Other ones are dopamine, serotonin, and glutamate.

B vitamins are essential for the well-being of the nervous system.A B vitamin deficiency can cause memory impairment which diminishes the ability to register, retain and retrieve things from the memory bank.

A few of the vitamin B sources are: potatoes, bananas, chicken breast, beef top round steak, turkey white meat rice bran, carrot juice, rainbow trout.

Most are aware of the major antioxidants, vitamin C and vitamin E and their food sources.

Did you know that calcium is also important for nerve impulse conduction?"

Dr. Diamond has touched on an important element to keep our brain healthy with proper diet. When we see what people choose for a meal in restaurants it is no wonder that children have attention deficit disorders and a lot of other conditions, the lack of good nutrition in our country is appalling. Doctors cannot always fix what their patient have inflicted themselves with by eating junk food instead of vitamin rich nutrition.

How many cook their meals at home? Does it take that much time away from television? Is what we eat responsible for memory loss?

I know it is tempting to go far and wide while discussing Dr. Diamond's article, it invites us to explore the endless possibilities of the brain but we should not stray too far I think.

I read and reread it to make the content sink in because I would like to stay focused as we examine each part one by one.

I read PatWest's post about humor and what I gathered from it is this man's mind kept wondering off from the task at hand. He just went from one task to the other without finishing it. He kept forgetting what he was doing every time he walked a few feet away. His lack of concentration was obvious. I wonder how this man is spending his day? In front of television you think?

Éloïse would you consider focusing us again - I have read the links and still do not find the information about red meat or vitamin B12 - is there a link within the articles I should be reading?

You had two sets of questions are we focusing now on the 5 ways to help a healthy brain - please a quick sentence or two to focus us I would find very helpful.

Sure Barbara, I printed the article because it's hard to read it on the computer. I can work better with the pages besides me. That part is on page 9. In the "Diet and Brain Grownth" section, it's the 19th paragraph. It's easier to go back 3 paragraphs before the "Exercise" section. Here is it:

"In what foods do we find B6? A few vitamin B6 sources are: potatoes, bananas, chicken breast, beef top round steak, turkey white meat, rice bran, carrot juice, rainbow trout. That represents a quick selection from the literature; one need not struggle too much to find dietary sources of vitamin B6." The B6 vitamins is part of the B vitamins in which B12 belongs.

In the future I will post the paragraph we are focusing on. We don't have to write only about one part, it's OK to write what comes to minds, but it would help if you could mention the section to help us understand.

When you have a questions for Doctor Diamond, please say it and we will transmit them to her by email. Thanks.

Right Caroline, fish oil contains the most vitamins A and D.

The B vitamins

"We have known for years that B vitamins are essential for the well-being of the nervous system. Let us just take one B vitamin, vitamin B6. B6 is important in the metabolism of amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. And B6 is vital for the creation of neurotransmitters. Like nearly everything in life, however, this vitamin needs something else to help it function efficiently. In the case of B6, it is zinc.

Practically speaking, a vitamin B6 deficiency can have multiple effects, none of them pleasant. It can cause memory impairment which diminishes the ability to register, retain and retrieve things from the memory bank (actually, memory is laced in and out of the brain, so I should say memory banks) A shortage of B6 also can lead to nerve damage in the hands and feet."

Dr. Diamond's article devotes 5 pages on Diet alone and that is to stress the fact that diet is the most important element in keeping the brain healthy. But it's funny how everybody thinks they eat well and their diet is not responsible for the health problems they have. I will have to reevaluate my own eating habits because of new information that I can benefit from.

One of the great advantages, I think, of a complete vitamin supplement is that it assures such adjuncts as zinc are present to assure proper assimilation.

I haven't seen peanut butter mentioned; it's an excellent source of B12. And protein.

Babi

I've just finished Sanjay Gupta, M.D.'s book Chasing Life and he emphasizes the same things Eloise spoke of in her post #73. He's a neurosurgeon who believes that to keep the memory functioning and to lower the chances of Alzheimer's, one needs to follow what's often called the (1)Mediterranean style of eating..lots of cold water fish, vegetables, (2) engage in physical exerice (he encourages both walking and upper body weight work), and (3) mental activity. Nothing new there, but as Eloise and others have said, it truly seems to be a "use it or lose it" thing. Mental activity/reading seems to be a life-long habit, somehow, and maybe it's tied clear back to children who have trouble reading never learn to enjoy it or such mental activity. I'm sure we've all been in others' homes and never see a book, a magazine, a newspaper anywhere ever, but there's a huge TV in full view and obviously much used.

Is it possible for people who've never read, discussed world events, etc. to get interested in such when they're in their 70s+? I guess I haven't seen that happen among those I know so am discouraged that would/could happen.

jane

Babi, Peanuts, page 8,

"By now, surely you want to know some of the dietary sources of choline! (1) Soybeans and their soy products. These days you will find an increasing number of soy-based products on the shelves. We tofu advocates have it with marmalade for breakfast. (2) Egg yolks. Yes, the cholesterol content is high, but those who do not have elevated cholesterol levels can have egg yolks and be assured of getting choline. (3) Peanuts. They are somewhat high in fat and sodium, but use them moderately along with other source foods. (My father always had a big bowl of peanuts for us when we came home from school.) (4) Liver. There are those who enjoy liver! I am one."

Wow, just keeping up with this discussion is a challenge. So many new ideas. Eloise, thank you for bringing us to focus again on the diet. I try to have a healthy diet -- fruit or veggies with every meal, fish once or twice a week, but had never really associated DIET as being important for the BRAIN. This discussion really makes one aware of the importance to treat the WHOLE body, brain included.

Chlorine!! -- that is definitely a new one for me. Eggs seem to last me forever -- will try more hard-boileds on salad. Do chicken livers have chlorine? My youngest was growing soybeans in her garden and said they loved to eat them just raw. Soy milk does not appeal.

Jonathan, we always used to kid my mother because whenever we had fish for dinner she would call it "brain food" and say that's why she was so smart.

I have questions, but they deal more with the senses and learning, so will hold off.

Pedln, You read too fast love. Choline not Chlorine which is totally different and is used for bleaching. Please look up both definitions in Google for the exact meaning.

Soy products is very high in protein and doesn't contain the terrible fats meat has, so it's a good substitute, we should get used to it. It contains so many other benefits. Asians eat a lot of soy products, they live the longest among humans beings.

Calcium

"Next, it is important to discuss calcium and, in particular, the interaction of calcium and the parathyroid gland. Many are familiar with their thyroid gland in the neck, but did you know that the parathyroids are right there too? Usually four of them. They regulate the amount of calcium in your blood. If you have low blood calcium, hormones from the parathyroid glands have no trepidation about going to your bones to extract the calcium needed to raise its levels in the blood. Furthermore, everybody knows that calcium is important for bone structure and muscle contraction, among other roles, but did you know that calcium is also important for nerve impulse conduction?"

I always wondered why a glass of milk before going to bed helps us sleep. Any connection here?

Where are you reading all this from when I link on "5 Factors Related to a Healthy Brain" - there is a one page document - and then when I link onto "Conversation With Marian Diamond" - there is a 5 page document - both links only talk about Marian Diamond - I cannot find where you are getting the information about food or vitamins. HELP!

Barbara, in the heading where the graphic of the brain is, click on the right of it where you see, "Read the article, Successful Aging of the Healthy Heart." I printed the whole article from there. It is a keeper.

Oh lordy I never even saw it - as big as a barn and I never saw it - I was so entranced with the graphic of the brain and the identifying parts that I went right down into the rest of the heading - I thought it was the title of the discussion underlined - OK thanks...

Now that we know about how diet contributes to a healthy brain I would like to follow that up with Exercise Factor. Now let us turn to our second key factor in maintaining a healthy brain:

EXERCISE brings oxygen to the every part of the body.

"We know that exercise improves skeletal muscle tone and function and that it helps the venous return in our legs, a good reason to keep our legs active. In fact, the value of regular exercise cannot be overrated. Among the long list of routine health conditions ameliorated by exercise, we hear today from many corners that lack of exercise is responsible for or contributes to the increased incidence of sugar diabetes, cardiovascular problems, obesity, and depression. Very important about exercise is that it is essential for bringing oxygen to all parts of the body, and, as I will explore now, especially to the brain. One particular brain structure is most vulnerable to a lack of oxygen, and that is the hippocampus. Early anatomists thought that the hippocampus resembled a seahorse.

The hippocampus deals with the processing of recent memory and visual spatial processing. As we age and our blood vessels become less efficient, it is very important to get the oxygen through the vascular system up to the hippocampus, as well as to the rest of the brain and body"

That's new to me, oxygen input from exercise helps with loss of recent memory.

Talk about exercise - Gardener downs tools at 104

red meat is good. I'm in luck . . .my favorite food. . .Claire

Jane Welcome. I see homes where there is not one book, newspaper, magazine in view as you say but a large TV. Well, I am not going to say what I think, I do watch news about 5 minutes a day, and I start with European news because I have TV5 the French channel, then I watch American news, then local news, some good documentaries, a good movie, and nothing else. Too busy doing other things.

Now that we know what organ in the brain that is responsible for memory, the hypocampus, which 'is most vulnerble to a lack of oxygen". When someone has a head injury and looses consciousness, or becomes amnesic it's the hypocampus that is responsible? do I understand it right?

Of course when someone is handicapped they can't exercise much, but it's possible to exercise the upper body sitting down, even aches and pains lessen with movement to the joints, but it's hard.

"As a good exercise, I agree with those who emphasize swimming. Yes, walking is a wonderful form of exercise that uses our lower extremities, but total body swimming exercises both upper and lower extremities. Many are well aware of feeling depressed after having been indoors for several hours. I certainly do. Exercise is a trustworthy antidote to depression. I am focusing on older adults now, but there is increasing concern that children are spending too much time sitting in front of their computers and video games, and not getting the exercise they need. (Interestingly, exercise has also been shown to benefit children with hyperactivity problems.)

Suffice it to say that everyone, from the toddler to the frail elderly should have some appropriate daily exercise routine that is as implanted in your day as brushing your teeth, getting dressed, and eating your breakfast. I advise a minimum of an hour a day, but you can work up to it. Five minutes is better than no minutes, and, for those who have never been exercise enthusiasts. Don't be surprised to find that it will cease being a "have-to" and become something you look forward to."

Walking, gardening, dancing are all good exercise. Did you see that? A minimum of one hour a day. Now folks lets get off that chair.

More and more, we find our brain and body altered by chemicals. Some by means of air polution, water polution or food polution.

Some of this is accidental, but the ingestion of many chemicals is to obtain highs for teens and others. Other chemicals make up a group of "feel good" medications available by prescription.

I read a work of fiction by Robin Cook about the weird actions of some women in Salem that resulted in charges of witchcraft which was due to moldy grain. Supposedly there was some facts that supported this theory in his book.

I shudder as I look back on all the medications offered to "cure" problems that I experienced and the side effects resulted in something worse than the original problem.

Cosmetics and perfumes offer women a chance to experience the effects of chemical poisoning. Same for men.

Is a person at risk for their brain to be altered by chemicals with a resulting unwanted physical action? I am thinking specifically about the shooting at Virginia Tech.

We forwarded to Dr. Diamond two more of your questions:

1. You suggest that a democratic society is conducive to brain excellence. Does that mean that someone living in a tyrannical society is seriously disadvantaged? What makes the difference? --Jonathan

Also, is there any evidence or any on-going studies that prove the efficacy of Vitamins or supplemental minerals in preventing the aging of the brain? --Alf

Here are Dr. Diamond's responses:

#1. First, I am assuming that living within a tyrannical society is more stressful that living within a democratic society. We and others have carried out the effects of stress, which increase corticosteroids, and which in turn reduce the size of the cerebral cortex, causing the animals to solve maze problems slowly. If we consider the tyrannical society to be more repressive and restricted and consequently stressed, then we would find the cerebral cortex which deals with higher cognitive processes (see below) would have restricted growth. The vitality of the democratic spirit (perhaps equivalent to our enriched animal environment) stimulates the cerebral cortex in an environment with less stress to such a degree that the animal can solve maze problems quicker and better than an animal in an impoverished, restricted environment.

What makes the difference? Living with or without excess stress.

#2. A very good question, but I do not believe that the best study to answer this question with any close degree of accuracy has yet been done. Doing longitudinal studies takes decades and decades to be reliably accurate. For me to accept "results from a study to prove the efficacy of vitamins or supplemental minerals in preventing the aging of the brain," a longitudinal study with multiple variables would have to be designed.

#a. Which vitamins and minerals to consider?
A, B, C, D, E, etc. Ca, Zn, Mg, Fe, etc All of them? But then how do we know which ones are most effective? or using hormones such as human growth hormone?

# b. When to begin the study?
Prenatal, early childhood, adulthood, middle aged, old aged

# c. What variables of aging to look for in the brain and in what part of the brain?
In focusing on #b, we have learned with our studies that nerve cells in the cerebral cortex are not significantly lost after adolescence, but they are lost before. We lose aproximately50% of our brain cerebral cortical nerve cells before we are born. We chose to count nerve cells in the cerebral cortex, an area dealing with "higher cognitive processing", i.e. initiative, judgment, working memory, planning ahead, sequencing, etc. The cerebral cortex is last to develop embryologically and is the newest phylogenetically. It deals with our highest intelligence.

I can see a lifetime of research to achieve an accurate answer to #2, but in the meantime enjoy your multiple vitamins and minerals, stay away from too much stress, and find a good deal of pleasure in your many, many happy years ahead.

Do you have follow up questions for Dr. Diamond about these responses or other questions?

s the area affecting memory. Is that where our senior moments

come from? Do we metabolize less oxygen with aging?

claire

ÉLOÏSE, thank you for choosing such an excellent, relevant topic ! I have read only the last messages and will try to catch up. We are fortunate indeed to have Dr. Diamond respond to questions.

It appears Dr. Marian Diamond's article "Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain" was written in "2001" for a joint conference on aging.
Does she have any follow-up results or articles since that time ?
Is she associated with any drug companies ? Is so, which ones ?
Has she been doing brain studies with children in Cambodian orphanages rather than with lab rats ? If so would she elaborate a bit.

CEREBRAL CORTEX I found several other links showing images of the cerebral cortex.

Thank you Dr. Diamond for answerring participants questions, we appreciate your taking the time to answer them.

Welcome Traude. I hope you will find the time to come back and add your thoughts.

Welcome EmmaBarb to our discussion.

Challenging the Brain is the third element in keeping the brain healthy.

"In terms of "successful aging," it is not enough to continue activities in the same groove, year after year, with the same expenditure of mental and physical energy" In other words, we become bored.

"the brain needs new challenges if it is to remain a healthy, functioning organ. Translated, if you have been enjoying working on the same kind of crossword puzzles year after year, it is time to advance to more complicated puzzles or to introduce a new game that will challenge different skills that are lying dormant."

Don't you find that something new to do gives you a thrill? A new game to play, or watch, a new book to read, meeting a new friend you like?

"For my research, I divide the animals into experimental groups: two experimental groups of rats living in conditions I describe as "enriched" and "impoverished.". An enriched environment is one in which 12 rats live together in a large cage, filled with a variety of play objects, objects that present some challenge.

In contrast, the impoverished environment houses one rat. The animal lives by itself and there are no objects in the cage and a control group which consists of so-called normal housing conditions of three animals to a small cage that is devoid of any objects."

Now we will learn what the "cerebral cortex" really means.

"Examining and comparing brain tissue from each of the three groups yields a wealth of information. The outer layers of the cerebral hemispheres are called the cerebral cortex. Cortex means "bark." The cortex is a dynamic structure. Parts of the human cortex have sent humans to the moon.

The thickness of the cortex is one of the first measurements we make because it is simple and let's us know if changes are occurring in the constituents of the cortex, namely, neuron number and size, dendrite growth, synaptic growth, etc. (All of these variables we have measured previously to determine meaning of cortical thickness.)"

What are your thoughts about that part of Dr. Diamond's article?

I have seen studies that demonstrate the importance of what Dr. Diamond calls an 'enriched environment' in the early development of children. The more stimulation the child receives, ie,, music, visual activities, conversation, alternate surroundings, etc., the more brain development he achieves. Contrarily, a child who is plunked into a playpen for most of the day with a couple of toys will be slow to advance, even in such basics as walking.

Babi

Babi You make me think of children brought up in a very stimulating environment where the dinner table's conversation serves as a warehouse for their active imagination. The parents talk about work, about world events and even toddlers accumulate knowledge in their growing brain. They can even learn several languages simultaneously.

We learn that thickness of the cerebral cortex indicates an increase capacity to solve more and more intricate problems.

Is the capacity to solve difficult problems an indication of increased intelligence or skill? Can intelligence increase with a rich environment. or was it there in the first place unable to manifest itself because of poor environment?

I believe that healthy mental activity and a variety of activities, adding new to replace ones that have become boring is important at every age. As BaBi said above, a child in a playpen or a crib with the same toy or the TV only to watch for years will not develop, in my opinion, as one who is exposed to a variety of mental stimuli. The same is true for children, young adults, adults whatever their age.

I personally have become bored with reading. It seems that authors who used to appeal have become "cookie cutters." I developed an interest, while on a trip to New England with others who were knitters to get back to knitting. The figuring out of a pattern, following it, getting it like I want has provided much (sometimes too much!) mental stimulation and it's now become my current passion.

jane

Years ago my next-door neighbor told me how she tried to learn something new each year. She's made baskets, created booklets with marbled covers, last summer her garage was the area for silk screening and tye-dying fabrics for the clothes she made. She and her husband are just now starting their "retirement" years, moving away (sob, sob) to new property near North Carolina's Folk Art School. I don't doubt they look forward to many years of successful, involved living.

Yesterday I was talking with one of my bridge groups about Dr. Diamond's article. One woman wanted the link -- her mother, a former teacher, died recently after several years with Alzheimer's. "Mother was always an unhappy person. I wonder if that contributed to her condition," she said.

I have a question about exercise. I know it's important, but does it matter what kind? The elders in my family never "exercised" per se, but they mowed their own lawns (no motors), they wall-papered and painted, cleaned their own homes. A few were ardent golfers, but go for a run, swim, even a long walk -- never. But they played bridge, read newspapers until their dying days. An uncle who lived to 102 was the financial guru of his retirement condo.

Another question that came from the bridge club discussion -- are there studies and/or stats about gender differences in the aging brain? We had talked about love and the brain, and the group consensus was that women fared much better than men in later years, especially after loss of a spouse, because they were more used to networking and developing social outlets.

Ray, your questions are sent to Dr. Diamond for response. Good questions.

Jane, I love this: "It seems that authors who used to appeal have become "cookie cutters." I too have different tastes for books, I can only enjoy either old classics, or those who will make the grade, I can't be bothered with the middle ground any more. Life is too short.

Pedln, I plan on having us discuss gender differences, because it tickles my interest also.

Challenging the brain 4th paragraph of that section

"By now you might have trouble understanding why thicker is better. Psychologists have tested the rats living in enriched or impoverished conditions and found the enriched rats ran maze tests faster than did the impoverished. Evidently more dendrites, hence, thicker cortices, indicate a greater ability to solve problems."

It's beginning to take shape. Read the previous paragraphs in the link above because I can't rewrite every everything Dr. Diamond wrote, because we have to move ahead, lots to discuss in this.

If we try to go beyond our capacities a little, can we increase the cortex at any age? I am beginning to think we can. What do you think? Does it cause too much stress for the brain to handle?

so hope to see it down here where I'm set for 18.

My problem with all of this is that it's in the field of experimental psychology in which humans are considered to be similar to RATS. I think I'd find it more interesting the field of CLINICAL psych where humans are treated as humans.

The dendritic connections are where our smarts and creativity lie. Just an old psych/art major remembering a thing or two. Every new thing we do requires another connection that wasn't there before. The more the better in terms of our smarts and staying ahead of the aging monster. Claire

Winsum, I'm not quite sure I understand what you are referring to.

my daughter is a psychologist. when she was at UCSB that's Santa Barbara she found that their focus was on experimental

psychology and she wanted to work with people which is clinical psychology

so she came home to Los Angeles and finished her undergraduate degree at UcLA and from there to can't remember the name but it's one of the two post grad schools she wanted. the other in Boston. the next five years were all done there. that's the difference. This discussion is based on scientific studies involving animals and most especially rats because of their similarities to us.

Like her, I'd rather be involved with what happens to PEOPLE. Our latest mad man was just designated as a certain kind of madness a paranoid something or other which is currently in the news. I wonder how many copy cats are out there. Lots of bomb threats lately.

claire

Research with RATS is SUBJECTIVE it only MAY relate to humans. Cant ask questions of rats AND few of these experiments can be repeated accurately. I HOPE we can keep this discussion contained to what we as SNs can do to promote good mental health .To expand on others here , use the mind as a muscle , use it or loose it, they say.Keep a mental LIST of todos..THEN .Do something different every 6-12 months.create more dendrites!

Right Rockfl, I like this: "Keep a mental LIST of todos..THEN .Do something different every 6-12 months.create more dendrites!"

I will be posting the next segment of Doctor Diamond's article to continue learning through the extensive studies in the field of the healthy aging of brain we have started only a few days ago. This discussion is only interesting for participants who are interested in that subject, the others are not here.

I always thought that to continue to solve some problems every day even if they sound trivial, but it's important to keep mentally and physically active whether it is arts, music, gardening, swimming, crafts, sewing and to say the least, playing BRIDGE.

This part is where we talk about the study on rats to find out what happens to their brain when they are challenged and when they are not challenged. Of course it would be inhuman to do a study on humans wouldn't it. (Science has experimented on rats for ages to find cures for diseases that are now eradicated.)

What Dr. Diamond is trying to convey is that the thicker the cortex the more ability the brain has to solve problems, in other words, the healthier a brain is. Does everyone agree?

"By now you might have trouble understanding why thicker is better. Psychologists have tested the rats living in enriched or impoverished conditions and found the enriched rats ran maze tests faster than did the impoverished. Evidently more dendrites, hence, thicker cortices, indicate a greater ability to solve problems."

What would happen if there were NO challenges at all in our lives? No problems to solve? would we be happier I wonder?

After reading the last bit about lab technology using animals I found myself feeling annoyed - sorry if this puts a damper on the work represented - I am sure it has its value but for now I am not sure I see the value in the first sentence of the article which says "Successful Aging"

What is Successful Aging - what does this really mean - we accept that aging means deteriation - the only bodies that I know of that have been kept from deteriation are mummies - so to successfully age - does that mean a quick, faster way to deteriation or the prevention of deteriation which is the reverse of aging.

The suggested ways to slow the aging of the brain is what I am reading in this report - well that is an enomoli - that is not successful aging.

No matter if everything we do to slow the aging process we are still aging - I do think there is a lot more then these 5 characteristics that speed or slow the aging process for each of us. But more, and most of all, how do you measure Joy, Well Being, Satisfaction, Quality of Opportunities, Will Power, Confidence, Dedication, Freedom to Risk, Ability to Handle the Challenges We are Given, Discipline, Our Skills to Charm, Luck, Focus, Dreams, The Size and Functionality of our Family, Persistence, Courage, Optimism, Resolve, Faith in Ourselves and Our Fellow Man, Enthusiasm, Reliability, Ability to Manage our Lives, Ability to Come Back From Failure or Loss.

These un-measurable characteristics would be how I would measure success in aging. Not how thick the cortex of our brain is or measure myself against the prescription listed towards maintaining a healthy brain. Various parts of my body are going to age differently - it is interesting but frankly it is too easy to get caught up in my measuring if I have been a good little girl and done the things to keep my body from aging quickly or in pain.

I am what I am - my heritage or something has given me what I am just as much as nurturing, exercise, foods with vitamins and the accessablity of vitamins in a capsule. To measure Successful Aging to me means a suggested guide towards the characteristics of Successful living - the aging will take care of itself. And for Successful living all I can do is focus on becoming more filled with Joy, Integrity, Resolve to be Courageous, Risk, Meet New People to replace those who depart from life earlier than I have, and most of all find what I can be Grateful for in every situation that I face so that I do not feel bitter or filled with Self Pity. That to me comes closer to defining Successful Aging then feeling guilty because I did not eat enough vegetables or did not take my daily walk so that my brain would more slowly age.

And so bottom line I think to define for ourselves what we think is Successful Aging - and then, ask ourselves if we think we are Successfully Aging - if not, then consider what we can we do to bring more Success to our Aging - because we are aging - it is just that we see ourselves aging now more than we saw it 20 or 30 years ago.

Our aging means less of some aspect of life and we do not like less - I am thinking that is it - I like the idea of trading ideas on how to bring more into our lives to replace the less that each of us experience in one way or another. And that more I do not think is centered around a focus on our physical health but rather taking our physical healthy into consideration what can we bring to our lives that are the non-physical aspects of living.

it' very relaxing. I started a new one yesterday or was it today. anyhow here's the

underpainting if you are interested. It's changed already but it's nice to know where I've been.

My mind is often like this. slowing it down is the problem.

Claire

sounds to me Claire that focusing on creating art is solving a problem of defining a particular space using elements that create a statement that is often beautiful. If that is so than there are so many aspects of life that are not measurable that you are utilizing to successfully age. Your ability to focus, plan, know various materials and how they react to each other, a definition of beauty or desire to make a statement, enthusiasm for what you create and the skills you have developed towards bringing your creation alive - on and on it goes - I like thinking about your efforts towards a successful life while our bodies age. I really do like the picture that represents. Kudos Claire.

PS I am grateful you share your ways of achieving success as an example of things I can do - I may not like to produce art enough to want to do it full time and really get better at it but it is a delight to create cards for the holiday and think of making my garden a more beautiful place to look at. Thanks for sharing your inspiration.

Barbara thanks for being inspired. that makes me happy. Claire

I am a clinical psychologist and have been following this discussion daily but have not posted because the tendonitis in my right shoulder is making it difficult for me. I have not even been doing the job that I should be doing as DL for Story of Civilization.
Your posts are intriguing. Keep it up!

Robby

I am happy Claire that you keep your art, thanks for posting a link to it. Art keeps neurones constantly challenged.

Barbara "it is just that we see ourselves aging now more than we saw it 20 or 30 years ago." How is that Barbara, Is it because of how we are perceived by society through the media, television, etc.?

I am sorry Robby about the pain in your shoulder. Thanks for following this discussion and we will appreciate your comments when you have recovered, I can't wait for your opinion. I am sure you are following your doctor's advice, well that is IF you have consulted a doctor, doctor, get well soon.

Doctor Diamond is a Professor of Neuroanatomy and she elaborates on the physical as well as the psychological aspect of the brain but mostly on the physical aspect of it.

First we have been talking about Diet, Exercise and Challenging the Brain. Next will be the "Brain Challenges and the Immune System."

I read the sentence about we see ourselves aging and realize it can be understood in a different way than I imagined - I was thinking we were physically aging back when we were in our 40s but it was not a big deal or, as noticeable when we looked at ourselves in the mirror - we were also not loosing some of our abilities because of aging as we are now when we are in our 60s 70s and 80s.

Now I realize what I wrote could easily have been understood that society did not notice aging in the same way in the 1970s and 1980s. And yes, I do think society is having a conversation about aging that is different after 30s years of expecting Mom and Dad to go to a nursing home.

This expectation is changing - there are more assistant living homes being built than the old fashioned nursing home since nursing homes have received such a bad name - and those in the 60s and 70s by and large are more independent with expectations for themselves that does not include being taken care of by others. I also think that when the books started to appear about the "Greatest Generation" all of a sudden older folks were being honored and therefore, they are looked at differently by society so they were less likely to be warehoused in group homes.

The other aspect is just as the WWII Veterans had educational opportunities that they took advantage of and this nation zoomed from only 5% of the population attending college, as before WWII, to 55% attending college. This "Greatest Generation" were the first to have decent retirement packages so that a majority of older folks are no longer dependent upon their children. Once you loose your independence you are no longer the vital ageless senior but a dependent that does not have a full voice about all aspects of your life.

The segment of the population that is entering into the senior years are now the sons and daughters of this "Greatest Generation" and were the generation of social activism when they were younger. And so between having more money to stay independent longer, to purchase health care and healthier foods, have more formal education they go into their senior years with less stress. The stigma of things like hair dying is no longer an issue and the biggie - the law now say you cannot discriminate because of age! Therefore, more seniors can work and continue to be vital contributing members of society rather than either Grandma or Grandpa in the upstairs bedroom or housed in a nursing home.

In my book being a vital contributing member of society is the measure of Successful Aging - regardless how our body ages as long as we have the ability to contribute in some way we remain relevant and show those immeasurable qualities that to me are the most important aspect of our lives since we can continue to build on them regardless our physical health.

I had no idea that the two were connected in any way. Let's find out how.

"In 1980, French investigators, working with female mice, had stripped off most of the cerebral cortex in their animals and found that this procedure affected the number of circulating T cells in the blood. That was the key I had been looking for. It told me that the cerebral cortex was involved specifically with immune function. The task was to find out which part of the large cortex specifically affected the immune system

....we decided to measure the cortical thickness from the front to the back of the whole mouse cortex In doing so, we found an area on both the right and left cortices that was thinner in the immune-deficient female mice compared to normal mice cortices. Immune-deficient mice have no thymus gland. It is congenitally lacking. A graduate student decided to transplant the thymus into the immune-deficient animal, and found the cortical thinness deficiencies were reversed. In other words, no significant difference was found in the thickness of the cortex after a thymus transplant between the immune deficient animal and the control. We then knew we had established an area, the dorsal lateral frontal part of the cerebral cortex, that is related to the immune system.

We all know how important the immune system is to our body.

Isn't it fabulous that scientists can determine exactly where the immune system is located in the brain. I find that fascinating.

Do you want to know what part of the brain is activated while you are playing bridge?

"For our part, I felt that most people haven't heard of the Wisconsin Card-Sorting Test, so I set about finding a game everybody has heard of and decided on the card game of "bridge". Playing bridge calls for working memory, planning ahead, sequencing, initiative, and judgment--all functions associated with the dorsolateral frontal part of the cortex.

We were terribly thrilled with these results. Clearly, the cerebral cortex has a role in controlling the immune system and our present task is to gind ways to "educate" the critical dorsolateral cortex and keep our immune system healthy."

I have learned now that the thickness of the cerebral cortex determines the importance of a healthy brain. I guess that is why diet, exercise, challenge and the Immune System help along with Newness, and Love that we will study next.

...even when brain damage is present, animals living in a stimulating environment are able to compensate for the damage. Look at the promise that holds for our species who receive some degree of brain injury. Yes.

From reading the material it sounds like by keeping to a healthy lifestyle the cerebral cortex is healthier as is our body - sounds to me like they are entwined - I am not sure I am reading anything that is special to and focuses on the health of the cerebral cortex - Éloïse are you finding any particular health habits that are exclusive to building the thickness of the cortex?

Eloise expressed my feelings well, about aging: "What would happen if there were NO challenges at all in our lives? No problems to solve? would we be happier I wonder?"

I see as of primary importance that which we aspire to do with the "extra" years we might add to our accumulation of time on this planet, as compared to what we would have done with an otherwise abbreviated total life span, the energy-creating force needed to make the effort worthwhile. That's sometimes referred to as one's philosophy of life.

With regard to the brain in particular, it is interesting to learn specifically its various compositions and to contemplate the number of dendrites that are required for various functions, but until we put in context some overriding reason for "living longer," such as serving on a board for improving the lot of a thousand orphans of war, why bother? Seems to me that motivation comes high on the list for improving our nutrition with respect to the brain - to think more clearly? or just to live an extra year or two? Am I driven to improve my eating habits or am I changing them eagerly for a positive purpose that gives me some joy of accomplishment? If the latter, I am to some extent the master of my fate, if the former, something or someone else is the commander.

Some people like myself experience neurological problems from certain foods and chemicals both in food and environmental. Being really ill made me take stock of myself. The first thing I did was change my diet. The difference was remarkable. For instance as well as giving me distressing GI symptoms, gluten made me withdrawn anxious and depressed and made my brain an absolute fog. Preservatives like sodium nitrate, and sulfite preservatives gave me panic attacks and asthma like symptoms. I always thought people who made these statements were cranks but I found out to my astonishment I was one of those people who suffered greatly from these food additives and from eating gluten. The proof as they say is in the pudding!

Barbara, I don't have the qualifications to answer your questions I only have personal opinions which don't always come from the medical profession but from reading. Among the worst health habits is abuse of every kind, bad diet, sedentarity, lack of stimulation and love as Dr. Diamond wrote in the article. Prevention is better than cure and much less painful. I found that the medical profession very remiss in the area of prevention, but after all their profession is treatment, not prevention because that is our own responsibility.

Boyd19 you say: "a positive purpose that gives me some joy of accomplishment?" I think that it a most important statement. Purpose. I always ask myself am I useful? can I do more? can I still learn at my advanced age? can I help others? and I say yes to all of these. I know that society has put the aged on a shelf on a large scale, but there are always people who need us somewhere, somehow, sometimes just next door. Or as you are saying on a larger scale, writing, serving on the board of a caritative agency, or better still give people who visit SeniorNet the chance to learn from your vast experience by joining a discussion that you find can benefit from it.

Kiwi, I too read the list of additives on food wrapings to look for the bad chemicals they add that I don't want, it takes time but it's worth it I think.

Eloise, this is a fascinating subject. I have been lurking and reading all the great post. Learning so much. I hope it is not to late to post something more about nutrition and the brain.

I found this on a website that explores how nutrition affects our brain.

"Food for thought

You are what you eat, and that includes your brain. So what is the ultimate mastermind diet?

YOUR brain is the greediest organ in your body, with some quite specific dietary requirements. So it is hardly surprising that what you eat can affect how you think. If you believe the dietary supplement industry, you could become the next Einstein just by popping the right combination of pills. Look closer, however, and it isn't that simple. The savvy consumer should take talk of brain-boosting diets with a pinch of low-sodium salt. But if it is possible to eat your way to genius, it must surely be worth a try.

First, go to the top of the class by eating breakfast. The brain is best fuelled by a steady supply of glucose, and many studies have shown that skipping breakfast reduces people's performance at school and at work.

But it isn't simply a matter of getting some calories down. According to research published in 2003, kids breakfasting on fizzy drinks and sugary snacks performed at the level of an average 70-year-old in tests of memory and attention. Beans on toast is a far better combination, as Barbara Stewart from the University of Ulster, UK, discovered. Toast alone boosted children's scores on a variety of cognitive tests, but when the tests got tougher, the breakfast with the high-protein beans worked best. Beans are also a good source of fibre, and other research has shown a link between a high-fibre diet and improved cognition. If you can't stomach beans before midday, wholemeal toast with Marmite makes a great alternative. The yeast extract is packed with B vitamins, whose brain-boosting powers have been demonstrated in many studies..."

If any are interested in reading the complete article here's the link

You Are What You Eat.

I can well understand why children eating "fizzy drinks and sugary snacks" do poorly on various tests. I'm sure we all have read how eating too much sugary foods causes an increase in the levels of insulin in our bodies to the point that it removes too much glucose and leaves us tired by mid morning. Hence, the poor scores on tests.

Bill H

Bill, Thank you for bringing this link "We are What We Eat", an article in the New Scientist Magazine and i will put it in the heading. It deals with everything we have been talking about in the discussion. Among very good points in this article is this one.

"Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. In other words, your granny was right: fish is the best brain food. Not only will it feed and lubricate a developing brain, DHA also seems to help stave off dementia. Studies published last year reveal that older mice from a strain genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's had 70 per cent less of the amyloid plaques associated with the disease when fed on a high-DHA diet."

Next is Newness versus Overstimulation. The third element in keeping a healthy brain.

Dr. Diamond's next basic factor.

"Is it possible, you might ask, to overstimulate or overenrich the brain? In fact, my conversation with a pediatrician, concerned that children are being constantly bombarded with new experiences"

In fact at first when television started to invade our homes with its overwhelming presence I thought that children would develop their intelligence to Einstein's level in a few years. Well it didn't as we can see. What happened?

"Too much stimulation can constitute a stress that is sufficient to militate against the enriching effect of "just right" conditions. Obviously, with humans "just right" varies, no? good stress/bad stress? variability of interests, passions, competences?

What chemical stress factor can be involved? The corticosteroids. Corticosteroids come from the adrenals ADRENAL GLANDS and they have been shown responsible for reducing cortical thickening. Do you know where your adrenals are? The word tells you: ad-renal, adherent to the renal or kidney. When we take out the adrenals, the cortex grows significantly, indicating that in the absence of corticosteroids, cortical growth is enhanced.

The lesson for humans? Too much stress decreases the dimensions of the cortex and is detrimental to our well-being at any age. The lesson for parents and teachers? Children need enriched learning environments but not to the degree that they are stressed. What is problematic in our species is that what is stress to one is not to another, and this variability needs to be reckoned with if we are to maximize everyone's opportunities for successful "aging" from childhood on.

The constant stress that modern humans are having can have negetive effect on the good functioning of the brain. How much stress do you have to cope with on a daily basis, I mean bad stress?

Until 12 years ago I had stress both at home and at work on a daily basis. I got very ill and it may be because of the stress my histamines went wild. They say stress can trigger celiac disease and diseases like lupus. I will not bore you with the details of my life long stresses but suffice to say that my therapist said I am a strong person not to have completely gone under. I never thought I was strong. I don't think the stress has destroyed my brain but I do think I am not as sharp as I was at 35. Now I deliberately make my life stress free. I still have worries with my daughter and two grandaughters health but other than that I do not create stress for myself. I think it pays.

The immune system attacking the bones as in arthritis . . .

How is it that older people are subject to this. Is it an aging attribute of the immune system that this is common to this older population?

Claire, it's not just older folks who have problems with the auto-immune diseases. My father died at 49 and my sister at 66 with autoimmune diseases.

We're out of town, so have not been able to check in regularly. I've just been reading along with this fascinating discussion, and not posting.

She elaborates on her experiment with 600 year old rats, the equivalent of 60 years in humans and at the Germany Academy of Sciences, rats lived to be 800 days old. Why the difference, what was missing?

"We had started our experiments using young rats, which are readily available and easy to work with. When we found that our enriched conditions accelerated the growth of dendrites (you recall how important dendrites are) we wanted to see whether older rats would do as well. We began to do our experiments with 600-day-old rats, an age that is possibly equivalent to 60 years-old in humans. Again, placing half of them in enriched conditions and half of them in non-enriched conditions, we found significant increases in dendritic branching in the cerebral cortex in the animals maintained in enriched conditions."

Now they saw that enriched conditions increased dendrites in the cerebral context, indicating a healthier brain, but rats still lived only 600 days. Comparing her finds with groups of older folks around the country, "It was clear to me that many were not getting enough attention, enough TLC, enough random acts of kindness. Sure, they had their television sets, adequate food, but where was the nurturing, the love? That I didn't see."

Do you mean to me that when there is kindness, love, TLC a person can live longer? So she experimented again on rats living in love deprived condition and those receiving TLC provided from students who held them against their lab coats and petted them. Those rats lived to 904 days the equivalent of 90 year olds in humans and they were still finding thicker cortical tissue among those rats.

To me that is a proof that without love, the brain itself can loose its health leaving the person unable or unwilling to continue living, not meaning committing suicide, but when the will to die is strong enough the body gives up. These old people had proper diet, exercise, perhaps not as much newsness and challenge, but NO love.

When you see how the elderly are packed in extended care facilities by overworked and uncaring personnel not receiving an ounce of TLC even from their family, it is appalling and unfair to those who have contributed so much to their family and to society.

Without love what is there to live for?

Doctor Diamond ends her article with love

"We used to believe, as scientists, that the loss of dendrites was an inevitable correlate of the aging process. It was simply our fate. Yes, it takes concerted attention to stave off the "inevitabilities" we have accepted for so long, but is the price really that high? Is it too much work to follow a healthy diet, enjoy plenty of exercise, seek out new challenges and get lots of love? My own life and work have been enriched immeasurably by two fortuitous statements I absorbed many years ago: a family crest that states:"Love conquers all" and the words of my Swiss grandmother: "In spite of all difficulties, upwards and onwards." A good combination."

LOVE CONQUERS ALL she says and when a elderly person has love, he/she can live with a serious physical handicap in pain, and live a very long time if he/she has someone who cares for them. When I visit hospices for the elderly, those who are happiest are not always up on their feet, but they have a loving personality and receive kindness in return, have families who visit them, make their life more comfortable, bring them something to occupy their minds, a book if they like to read, material for knitting, etc.

What do you think?

I have my apartment above my daughter's family, her husband and my two grandchildren and I see them every day. We have had this arrangment for the last 15 years and I am sure that it has contributed to my own mental health aside from diet, exercise, newness and challenge that was always a part of my life. I think love is the hardest thing to find when a person ages, their family has moved away, or don't care, old friends die or are too sick, they can't find new friends that interest them and suddenly nothing interests them any more, and just let go. But life is worth living when there is something to live for.

Eloise - that is so true. My daughters MIL is in a hospital and several times the doctors have said she will die. Her son and my daughter are just marvellous with her. The hospital is 5 mins from where they live. The doctors say she is a miracle lady. It is the love of her son and two grandaughters I am sure that keep her going. They make it plain they love her and I am so proud of my daughter for the love and affection she gives to her MIL. Marie is not mobile but when I visit her she is always cheerful. She does like a joke too.

Carolyn

Mary: How right you are about auto-immune diseases...like Rheumatoid Arthritis, Lupus, etc. attacking at all ages. I was dx with RA at age 32. Perhaps the others are thinking of Osteoarthritis which is the more "wear and tear" arthritis that is thought to strike people at older ages, but then it's not an autoimmune disease like RA or Lupus and does not strike the soft tissues, eyes, lungs, skin, etc. A good explanation and the differences between the two diseases is here

jane

.."she is always cheerful. She does like a joke too."

Right there, CAROLYN, is another thing that makes a big difference in one's alertness and longevity, IMO. A cheerful person with a positive attitude toward life is bound to be more successful in aging than one with the opposite grim view, don't you think?

I started a new Jim Butcher book yesterday, and immediately came across this quote, which I laughed at and wanted to share:

"..but age is always advancing and I'm fairly sure it's up to no good.

Babi

From "the island" discussion. Didn't think that I had time for both but this one is so good,too, I think I will try to keep reading the posts.

I have a story as we all do about illness and the immune system. When I was born(back in the olden days), my mother noticed during her week of recovery, that everyone kept saying how pretty my skin was---not red or mottled. The nurses even carried me around to show me off. Mom asked if there was problem and of course, there was. I had an enlarged thymus gland that could have been choking me. Back then, the treatment was radiation for two weeks!!!!! Can you imagine! Well, now the medicals folks know that some babies are born with enlarged thymus glands but the thymus swelling goes down on its own if left to its own devices. At least this is my understanding.

After reading here about the mouse who had no thymus gland but was tranplanted with one and the cortical thinness problems were reversed, I wonder! Should I have a mouse thymus transplant?? Just kidding!

I know there are many things out there that certain people shouldn't eat due to food allergies and there are simple tests that can be done by two friends who know the way to do it. I learned this in a kinesiology class 20 years ago("Touch For Health" was the manual used in the class). Found out that I probably shouldn't eat wheat but have never been able to go long without it. In today's grocery stores, there are so many substitutes for wheat in products, such as bread, it should be easier to go without wheat for me.

I have a friend who discovered that she had celeac disease and after completely cutting out whatever effected her badly(wheat being one) she says at the age of 76, she feels better than she felt at 40. She did all of the research on this by herself, first in the library and then on the internet.

So, someday, maybe, I will try a non-wheat diet for a month or three, just to see if my sinuses quite giving me so much trouble. It just might help!!

There have been no long term studies to study this.

Here is an interesting article http://health.msn.com/centers/cancer/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100160309&GT1=9293

One way I think cell phones affect the brain is to estrange the users who are constantly on the phone while driving, shopping, whatever from interaction with other people and from giving attention to the task at hand.

Cell phones are a great invention for safety, but to me they are greatly overused to the detriment of the user and the people around them. Sue

It's hard now for me to imagine a world without cell phones and TV. If I'm reading a book written before the present time I keep looking for them. the electronic aids that I use in my life actually an extension of my BRAIN POWER. So how much is dependent on the external and the new coming into my world and how much to native abilities, but I think in some ways I'm getting smarter even though memory balks at times.

Claire

I think of all the many lonely seniors who if they had a PC and could learn how to use it, would have their life changed forever. Even loving support via the internet can help. I think of the many seniors in here who say SN friends are their lifeline. Psychologists are even begining to admit that online communities are real social interaction.

Carolyn

Carolyn, that reminds me of a 90 yr old blind lady moving into a extended care facility after her husband died. She was told that her room was ready and stepping into the elevator she said: "I love it" and the nurse said: "But Agnes, you haven't been in the room yet, how do you know if you are going to love it?" and the old lady said: "I always start my day loving it and being happy to be alive".

Good link Jane, sometimes we think that arthritis and rheumatoid arthritis are the same. A member of my family has RA, it's even more painful than arthritis.

You are most welcome to join us Ann, Why should you have a thymus transplant? If your cortex was too thin you would be the first one to know

I often wonder about those cell phones Sue and I have seen a study once, but that was a long time ago. They still have to study the effects on a long term basis and cell phones haven't been around long enough to really know yet, I think.

The adverse effect of anything is abusing it.

Get a load of THIS

"One thing research seems to show rather consistently is that, for older adults in particular, beliefs about one's own memory performance have little to do with one's actual memory performance. People who believe that they have a poor memory are usually no worse at remembering than those who believe they have a good memory."

Recently I ran a test on memory for a university research project and I always thought I too was losing my memory. I was surprised that I had a very high score, yet, when I drive in a place for the first time I NEVER remember where it was the second time. I have to pass by there at least 7 or 8 times before I remember the way.

We have just as good a memory as young people, because they too forget lots of things.

But read the article in the link, it's interesting.

Until it comes to everyday words that suddenly escape me. I find myself describing the words for whomever I am speaking with to see if we can come up with it. We all laugh about it but it is sometimes very exasperating.

My good memory is for experiences that I have had and people whom I have known and the stories of their lives. I have always loved to listen to my older relatives tell stories about the family and have been this way ever since I was a child. So, when the family wants to recall something or someone, I usually get the call.

I think the damage from the cell phones is the accidents that people have while using them and driving. I have recently bought an ear piece and microphone for mine so that if someone calls I can talk if necessary (usual calls are from my sister, Mary or my husband). You know, those, "honey, while your out, can you stop at the Home Depot and pick up so&so.

I have become a techie nut! Just this week, I bought another connection for my portable landline phone so that I can use it and still do whatever I'm doing. Again its an earpiece and very small mic and the sound is wonderful. I also have a headset for my computer which is handy for listening to music while I work on other SN things.

The older I get the more I dislike small talk on the telephone. I love to hear from relatives who live a distance away but there are some callers I have who like to talk for more than an hour on a daily basis. I find that hard to deal with as meaningful conversation disappears into drivel. A ten minute phone call would be fine. The people that have this habit do not live alone they have spouses and children. Am I turning into a miserable old grouch?

Carolyn

caroline misserable old grouch?.

nah ....young people do that too.

Eloise and all ..I am late arriving at this discussion but have spent about two hours reading every post. What a great group of people and interesting questions and answers.

When I reached 70 I decided that I couldnt help aging but I didnt need to grow old In November I will be 80 ...inside I feel 22..it is no joke I check my birth cerificate once in awhile to make sure I am really going to be 80. Thanks to good genes I seem to be in good health as I approach this next decade.

Someoen asked if aging has anything to do with vision changes or hearing loss. I had a cataract surgery 20 years ago and havent needed glasses since then,, My cataract eye received a distance lens in the right eye and my left eye remained nearsighted. Shows what kind of odd brain I have that it works so well I dont need glasses. My hearing loss is due to inherited traits My mother was one of eleven and all lost their hearing sometime in thier lives, My five brothers lost their hearing as well One at 30.-.hearing aids did not help us and he had the cochlear implant and it didnt help either.

My father was one of 13 and I grew up with wall to wall relatives. My mother was 3 when her father died and my grandmother had a new infant as well My fathe was sort of in the middle of the 13 so by the time I appeared I had cousins who were married and had children .

As I recall all the children in the families were cherised and encourage to talk. My brothers and I were punished but not harshly My father took an exception to having two windows broken by the three older boys wrestling and breaking windows. My mother to the fact I took the top off of the small child size table to make a tap dance platform

I cxnt remember a time when I couldnt read. We had books in the house , a windup victola and a radio No phone until I was 12 ..no car, the bus, streetcars and cabs took us when needed but most of the time we walked everywhere My mother had a sweet voice and sang often while working or just sitting ,.SHe had a small garden in the back yard ,something I had as soon as we bought our first home...and until our children married I maintained that garden .. flowers as well..working in the soil was relaxing and am glad to know it is good for you.

We never had soda pop, potatoe chips etc ..ice cream was a treat since you had to buy it at the drugstore or in summer from a home cranked ice cream maker. All the food mentioned that is good for you is what we had, Fish at least once or twice a week, oysters in season, liver and onions , lots of cabbage, beans, meat of all sorts , sweetbreads, brains, ox tail soup, pigs feet, pig tails,.saurkraut all kinds of vegetables , fruit in season and home canned fruit in winter, Home made bread, cakes and pies...cocoa in winter, popcorn for a treat, oatmeal for breakfast in winter, REAL lemonade in summer ...I mention the food because I wonder if our diet helped my relatives and the families live to advanced ages., Active games ...roller skating, cowboys and Indians, Cops and robber, hide and seek ..jump rope. badmintion,. croquet, chess, checkers, all sort of card games.. marbles ...yo-yos swinging on the front and back porch swings . they were our trains and our planes. lots of imagomatobe games Do those things help to keep the mind active? Lots of compamy , nieghbors, relatives .. some one once said our home was like a train station..

Again I share these activities because it seems that all those activeties kept our minds growing ..we were always learning something new,,..Hop scotch etc music lessons ...we were encouraged to recite poetry etc My mother made all of my clothes , her clothes and my Irish grand mothers clothes so I learned the same and still make my clothes Being older is not as old as I thought it would be when I was 22. I am thankful for computers and especially for senior net as it keeps my mind busy ...if wieght training helps I get plenty of that in 20 lb bags of birdseed for my feeders, and for the dog, gallons of skim milk I go through about a qt a day Decided I would drink skim milk 40 years ago since if I did I culd have butter!

One thing I think helps to stay young and think young is to be useful ,to keep learning. to try new things even if you arent good at them to take classes ,,to be positive ...each day I look for something good ...admittedly with the world the way it is sometimes it is hard to do... My one son in law says he knows seniors by what they watch on weather and animal planet..I look forward to reading what others say...and learning how everyone views what they are doing I have to say all of you who have chronic and disabling health problems I have the utmost respect and admiration for you...I find your efforts to keep your minds active and your thoughts postive a help when I face a problem ...thanks for that ...love to all...anna

I see my spelling is AWFUL but I dont want to spend the time to edit so please decipher as you can....perhaps I should use LARGER TYPE

Dear Anna

I'm going to be 80 also but not until march. Isn't it amazing? lol

I never planned to be this old but now it looks like I'd better start taking care of myself if I'm going to keep hanging around. . . lose some more weight and do the eye compress thing and watch diet and and and. . .

see you all later smiles, Claire

me too.don't like to edit with these eyes. and larger does help. so use the type in the message box not the title because it's always too small. the box is set on my computer for 18 which works well.

Anna, Thanks for your lovely post. I am not eighty, but many of the things you described brought back fond memories.

I recently read an article which said that you can encourage yourself to be happier by keeping a gratitude journal at the end of each day. I assigned this task to my English students, and they loved the idea. It was so interesting to see the kinds of things they were grateful for in their lives. I joined in the project myself and found that I was indeed happier dwelling on the bright side of the day than on the disappointing events. I once read a book called "Learned Optimism" which had some of the same ideas. I think learning to be optimistic can help keep you young at heart.

Carolyn: You are not alone in your dislike of the telephone or long-winded "talkers." But, for me, it's not old age. I've been like that my whole life.

jane

ANNAFAIR, How wonderful to see you. Optimistic you? Of course you are, I have never seen a more optimistic woman than you. When the sun is absent, it's still shining for you. Your poems reflect that trait. In spite of rain, the sun is always shining on your world. I bet you your mother was like that. My childhood was NOT like your by a very long shot, but like Horselover said, you learn to be optimistic.

See here, so many of us are in our 80s and that alone is an indication that we took care of our health. I never tell anyone of all the health problems that are just around the corner for me, but I push them away with as much prevention as I can because I would like to live longer, God willing.

"Brains are around 60 per cent fat, so if trans-fats clog up the system, what should you eat to keep it well oiled? Evidence is mounting in favour of omega-3 fatty acids, in particular docosahexaenoic acid or DHA. (Docosahexaenoic acid: DHA. An essential fatty acid, thought to be important to the development of infants, particularly as regards their eyes and brain. DHA is present in breast milk and has been added to some infant formulas. Postnatal DHA may improve vision and some cognitive functions in infants and toddlers. DHA is an omega-3, polyunsaturated, 22-carbon fatty acid. It is present in abundance in certain fish (such as tuna and bluefish) and marine animal oils)

In other words, your granny was right: fish is the best brain food. Not only will it feed and lubricate a developing brain, DHA also seems to help stave off dementia. Studies published last year reveal that older mice from a strain genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's had 70 per cent less of the amyloid plaques associated with the disease when fed on a high-DHA diet.

Finally, you could do worse than finish off your evening meal with strawberries and blueberries. Rats fed on these fruits have shown improved coordination, concentration and short-term memory. And even if they don't work such wonders in people, they still taste fantastic. So what have you got to lose?"

During the worst part of the Depression we suffered greatly in my family, but my mother used an age old recipe for keeping the 6 of us healthy in spite of hardships. Every morning we had to have a teaspoon of Cod Liver Oil, we got used to it. We didn't know what junk food was, buckwheat pancakes, very little meat, fish once a week, lots of vegetables, we only had seasonal fruit. The difference with today is that food was ALL organic.

"Brains are around 60 percent fat"? Dang...can't get away from that fat anywhere! And our bodies are what...90% water? I am amazed we are functioning creatures.

Babi

I dont think it is my imagination that the food we ate when we were young tasted better...some apples today have no flavor and it is NOT my aging taste that tells me so!!!! Tangerines and oranges were a treat at Christmas and were in our stockings...The house my parents purchased when they were expecting me had a grape arbor In fact there were four houses in a row that all had grape arbors. The grapes were white and red and formed a wonderful shady place for my two younger brothers and me in summer. We spend a lot of time and money now to have a lush green lawn ...not me I must confess ..I prefer flowers or vegetables You cant give anyone a bouquet of grass!

Thanks for the compliment but it takes one to know one ...my young friend....anna

From the New Science Magazine link in the heading:

"Sleep on it. Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest

SKIMPING on sleep does awful things to your brain. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration,working memory and alertness all take a hit. IQ scores tumble. "If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk," says Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego. And you don't need to pull an all-nighter to suffer the effects: two or three late nights and early mornings on the trot have the same effect.

Luckily, it's reversible - and more. If you let someone who isn't sleep-deprived have an extra hour or two of shut-eye, they perform much better than normal on tasks requiring sustained attention, such taking an exam. And being able to concentrate harder has knock-on benefits for overall mental performance. "Attention is the base of a mental pyramid," says Drummond. "If you boost that, you can't help boosting everything above it."

These are not the only benefits of a decent night's sleep. Sleep is when your brain processes new memories, practises and hones new skills - and even solves problems. Say you're trying to master a new video game. Instead of grinding away into the small hours, you would be better off playing for a couple of hours, then going to bed. While you are asleep your brain will reactivate the circuits it was using as you learned the game, rehearse them, and then shunt the new memories into long-term storage. When you wake up, hey presto! You will be a better player. The same applies to other skills such as playing the piano, driving a car and, some researchers claim, memorising facts and figures. Even taking a nap after training can help, says Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario."

Does long term lack of sleep harm the cerebral cortex?

What is the right amount of sleep for someone over 60? Does it vary with each person?

Are we getting restful sleep if we toss and turn all night?

Eloise: Yes, I believe that each person's amount of needed sleep varies from person to person as does just about everything else...be it medicine we can tolerate, amount of calories we can consume without gaining weight, the tastes of foods we like and/or can tolerate, etc. I think sleep would also be one of those "individual" things. My husband can take a 20 minute nap during the day and awake refreshed and ready to go. I can't nap during the day unless I'm not feeling well, then I welcome sleep. I need about 10 hours of sleep at night to feel good and function well.

Truly "different strokes for different folks" when it comes to sleep.

jane

For those who might wish to read more about recent work in brain research, the current (May, 2007) issue of Scientific American carries an interesting and informative article. "Eyes Open, Brain Shut" by Steven Laureys beginning on Page 86 is a fascinating description of various levels of consciousness and the accompanying brain reactions to voice and other stimulants in patients following severe injury to the brain.

This magazine, by the way, long since available on newsstands and by subscription, has extended its publication to the internet with an E-subscription that includes access to all issues back to 1993. I closed my paper-copy subscription and now receive it monthly by download to my files on hard disk. You must have the Adobe Reader program (free download) to read it on-screen, and it takes a bit of getting used to in going from page to page since it follows the paper publication layout so far. I would hope that future years will see a completely E-version layout that no longer uses double- and triple-column text interspersed with illustrations just as they appear in the newsstand issues. Even so, it's far more convenient to refer to on-screen than by pulling a given copy from a bookshelf.

BABIES WATCHING TELEVISION

We had a discussion a couple of years back about this and studies found that it actually harmful to a baby's brain. Yes, even Baby Einstein, Baby Mozert and Teletubbies but especially is responsible for so many children suffering from ADHD.

I would be curious to have a brain image of a child watching television and one playing with toys.

Jane you need 10 hours sleep to function well? that is surprising in an adult. So many elderly people sleep from 4 to 6 hours comfortably. One lady I know only sleeps in spurts and not even in bed but in a recliner. She has done this I think for 10 years.

I need from 7 to 8 hours and if one cup of coffee keeps me awaky for long hours after, I have to take a nap the next day. To me sleep is more important than any stimulent. That's the way I like it.

Boyd19, thank you for telling us about New Scientist Magazine, it's very interesting.

Yes, that's been my pattern all my life; it's how I feel and function best.

Scientific American always had great illustrations. I used to like it for the ART.

https://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Account.ViewRegistrationAlt

Claire

I dont think I have ever slept 10 hours unless I was ill or exhausted from some event..I am what I call a moonflower ...a vine that only blooms at night..if I retire at say 10 or 11 I wake at 2am and am up until about 5..I will awake about 7 ...unless I have an appointment in the am ..after breakfast and some small housework I take a nap...my naps can be brief ..as little as 20 minutes..and in the afternoon I need another 20 min nap. When the children were small and I felt tired while driving..I would stop at a 7-11 let them buy something ..tell them to lock the doors and stay in the car while I napped I never napped longer than 20 min ..sometimes only 15 but when I awoke I was refreshed and able to go for a long time...I can sleep anywhere , day or night, with lights on ...TV on ( for someone else not me ..I just put my head on the pillow and close my eyes and I am asleep...when I awake I feel rested and ready to to begin a task, take a walk etc...this was my sleep pattern as long as I can remember ..My mother would often see my light on at 2 am and would ask if I was all right ,..I would be reading ( in fact I finished reading one book late at night by holding it outside my window and reading by moonlight) my mother of course had requested I turn my light out! I am also a dreamer in color too and have the funniest dreams...I can only recall a few times when I dreamt something scary ..most of the time if that is the direction it is going my mind changes the dream so it is not scary but a nice dream...my husband was a 8 hour sleeper , my youngest daughter would say goodnight at 2 years old and go to bed at 6 by herself At 40 she still goes to bed early ..I dont call after 8:30 at night and she wakes early in the morning ...always has..but each family member seemed to thrive on whatever sleep pattern they had..For me I prefer doing laundry at midnight, correspondence about 2 am , mop a floor,. nothing noisy, read a book, bake a cake etc whatever strikes my fancy or something I want to finish.....to me that is normal..anna

BROKA'S AREA OF THE BRAIN

We have lots of responses from Dr. Diamond to your questions. Post in the discussion if you want clarification or if you have follow up questions. If some of you follow up on Dr. Diamond's search term recommendations, let us know if you find any sites or articles that you think are especially interesting. thanks!

Is a person at risk for their brain to be altered by chemicals with a resulting unwanted physical action? I am thinking specifically about the shooting at Virginia Tech on April 16, 2007.
--Ray Franz

If I understand your question correctly, I will answer that all messages to the brain deal with chemical reactions, many of which in turn result in physical action. Input to the brain as horrendous as the Virginia Tech event undoubtedly has its impact depending upon the ability of the individual person to handle severe stress. Those with strong religious convictions are cushioned by their beliefs. Those who have faced disastrous affairs many times in the past will find solace more easily. The brain definitely can benefit positively from past experiences in reacting to new unfortunate events.

Is the capacity to solve difficult problems an indication of increased intelligence or skill?
-- Eloise

Is it necessary to separate intelligence (the ability to learn from experience; mental ability) from skill ( great ability from training)? Can't both be working together to solve difficult problems? In a sense both are very similar.

Can intelligence increase with a rich environment? Or was it there in the first place unable to manifest itself because of poor environment?
-- Eloise

If intelligence is learning from experience, then an enriched environment definitely can increase intelligence. This is a good question. Unless tests were provided in the very young in a poor environment and then again after being exposed to an enriched environment, we would have no baseline to answer your question.

When we found more glial cells in the brain of Albert Einstein than in the brains of the control human males, everyone asked if Einstein was born with more glial cells. We could not answer, for we only had his brain samples as an adult at 75 years of age. We could only compare with other older male brains.

If the hypocampus is the area affecting memory, is that where our "senior moments" come from?
-- Claire

The hippocampus deals more with recent memory than with long term memory. Is a "senior moment" primarily a problem with long term or short term memories? Has any data been accumulated to answer this question? May I suggest that you go to Google and enter: senior moments: long term or short term memory? There is a good deal of information presented which should be of value to you.

Do we metabolize less oxygen with aging?
-- Claire

I think one problem is lack of physical exercise to keep healthy blood vessels which convey oxygenated blood to the tissues. Total body exercise is equally important to brain exercise and challenges.

Do you have any follow-up results or articles on the successful aging of the older brain since this article?
-- EmmaBarb

I do not because I am spending my time trying to enrich the lives of poor Cambodian orphans. But please go to google and enter: successful aging to see what else is available at this time. I did and there's lots. Enjoy!

Is your research associated with any drug companies? Is so, which ones?
-- EmmaBarb

No, I have no association with drug companies.

Have your recent studies of the brain focused on children in Cambodian orphanages rather than on lab rats? Can you describe how you study the children's brain activity?
-- EmmaBarb

Yes. Let me begin by saying that working with the Cambodian children is very different from working with rats because we can have precise controls with our rat experiments, ie., age, genetics, diet, environment, etc. With our Cambodian study we can only measure the effects of our positive input by the children's behavioral activity after being exposed to classroom lessons, a diet including vitamins, personal caring, etc. We have brought a small group of children a long way with our form of enrichment. In fact, 14 boys and 3 girls are now taking physics, math and Khmer lessons in their local high school, something not possible without our project. Other children are at different levels of learning English and computers.

I get plenty of sleep. I'm on pain medication (Lyrica 150mg) twice a day and one side-effect is it makes me sleepy. It works in the brain somehow and to the nerve endings. The same medication is given to people that have seizures. The doctor doesn't get concerned about it because he said if you don't get enough sleep, the pain will be worse. I'm a night-owl and like at least 8-hrs continuous sleep. Sometimes I don't get that because I'm doing computer art late at night and forget what time it is. I find I'm more creative at night than during the day.

Do I understand that children watching TV too much can cause stress and in some children can add to or start ADHD?? What about ADD?? Same stress, same results?

"Glial cells, commonly called neuroglia or simply glia, are non-neuronal cells that provide support and nutrition, maintain homeostasis, form myelin, and participate in signal transmission in the nervous system. In the human brain, glia are estimated to outnumber neurons by about 10 to 1.[1]

Glial cells provide support and protection for neurons, the other main type of cell in the central nervous system. They are thus known as the "glue" of the nervous system. The four main functions of glial cells are to surround neurons and hold them in place, to supply nutrients and oxygen to neurons, to insulate one neuron from another, and to destroy pathogens and remove dead neurons."

Doctor Diamond, We all want to thank you for the most interesting answers to our many questions. I personally have learned a lot since we started a week ago. We appreciate your spending some time for our benefit. We might still have some questions in the coming week. Thank you again.

A great discussion, Eloise. I wish I had more time to participate. Just coming in and reading the posts is a pleasure as well as being informative. When I came across Boyd's #159, about additional information on the subject of the brain in Scientific American, I was reminded about another piece of work on it, in TIME, Jan, 2007. For anyone interested, here is a link:

The Brain: A User's Guide

The questions, and answers from Dr. Diamond are particularly interesting. We all surely congratulate her on the work she is doing with the children. What a break for them, getting such professional attention. I'm sure much useful experience is coming out of it for everyone involved in the project.

which could be long term memory since they are part of a working vocabulary. Recent events don't seem to be affected.

Claire

Jonathan, I spent a long time in the link you gave us and listened to some video clips: See Inside a Baby's Brain, How your Brain Handles Stress, Helping the Blind to See, and more. I invite you all to listen to these videos clips. Thank you Jonathan.

This study of the brain is so interesting. I was thinking about the brain that doesn't feel pain. We tend to look for treatment for that part of the body that hurts while being totally unaware that the brain too has the same health problems the rest of the body and even if it doesn't feel pain it still needs the same attention to keeping it healthy.

Claire, I don't know who invented Senior Moments, I never think about that when I look for a word because young people forget things we forget too, words, where they put their keys, bills to pay..... just kidding.

Our chance to stimulate our brains has just occurred "in spades." NASA has just released, today, their first series of stereo photographs in color, of the star we call Sol. You will need bi-colored glasses to fit over your eyes and/or over your prescription glasses, red filter on the left, cyan on the right, to view the actual stereo effect. I can vouch for it being a spectacular view indeed, as I have held a pair of these simple glasses in readiness for this and occasional other viewing opportunities for quite some years. Enter NASA.gov in the google search box, and see it in 2-D even if you must wait to see the 3-D views until you procure the glasses. Nasa includes a list of a few possible sources to obtain these glasses, and a sidebar describing how to construct your own.

As a lifetime lover of science and technology I heartily recommend this and other frequent brain-exercisers presented by NASA. PBS also is a frequent source of things technical. Our computers are truly becoming our "eye on the universe" as well as our own world.

Enjoy!

Like EmmaB, I always seem to write better and think more creatively at night. I get really wound up and mentally alert at the time most people are dropping off to sleep. I believe habit is a major factor. Although my mother used to let me stay up late in my pre-school years, so it could've been imprinted early on.

As a teenager, I required 10 1/2 hours sleep a night or I would feel almost ill. This has remained true into my senior years. In order to help me wind down for sleep when I was teaching some years ago, my [then] doctor prescribed a benzodiazapine--Restoril. It wasn't until years later I learned how addictive this drug is.

I fact, I haven't succeeded in leaving it behind. Unlike other addictions, willpower is irrelevant, because one must eventually sleep or suffer dire consequences.

I wonder if anyone has theorized why some require 10 1/2 hours while others get along well with six.

I have just experienced an example of how the mind is affected when under extreme stress. One of my BILs died the other day. One of my husbands cousins just phoned and asked me to look out some photos she gave me at my late husbands after funeral lunch. I have no recollection of that cousin being at my house for lunch and only a vague recollection of photos. The recollection of the photos is some years later when one of my SILs kids came and got the photos from me. How I first got the photos is a total blank. I must have been a real mess that day and for some months I think.

Carolyn

Thank you Dr. Diamond for responding to my questions.

barbara65b ~ it's good to know you as we share something in common. I had early bed time when I was very young and in the orphanage...sometimes it was still daylight when I was supposed to be asleep.
Oh gosh, I used to require a lot of sleep too when I was a teenager.

I have a low-grade headache most of the time and used to suffer from severe migraines. Here's an interesting story on a report migraines could decrease memory loss in women click here please. Sooooo do headaches actually help the brain if you're a woman over 50 ?

Coming from a migraine family, where most of us have had or still have migraines, Emma Barb, I am amazed that I'm having any trouble remembering words. Heck, I remember everything else! Tee hee! COULD is the optimum word here. I'm not sure I accept the reasoning for this newest of science's theories but I am not a scientist or a theorist either. Ahhh, Einstein, where are you when we need you????? hahaha!

I must return to the arms of Morpheus as I have a another busy day ahead. And of course, I am having one of those short sleep nights. Wouldn't you know!!

"People are poor at assessing their own memory.

One thing research seems to show rather consistently is that, for older adults in particular, beliefs about one's own memory performance have little to do with one's actual memory performance. People who beliee they have a poor memory are usually no worse at remembering than those who believe they have a good memory.

One theory for why this might be, is that people may be influenced by their general beliefs about how memory changes with age. If you believe that your memory will get progressively and noticeably worse as you get older, then you will pay more attention to your memory failures, and each one will reinforce your belief that your memory is indeed (as expected getting worse).

Memory decline can be a self-fulfilling prophecy

Research has also shown that common, everyday memory failures tend to be judged more harshly when the failure belongs to an older adult. What is laughed off in a younger adult is treated as an indication of cognitive decline in an older person.

There are ways in which cognitive function (memory, reasoning, problem-solving, etc) declines with age, but it would be fair to say that general belief over-estimates the extend of this. It is, to a large extent, a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe deterioration is inevitable, you are not likely to make any effort to halt it."

To be continued

Memory decline is associated with physical factors

"A large-scale study that tracked seniors over a ten-year period found that cognitive decline is not a normal part of aging for most elderly people: 70% of the nearly 6000 seniors in the study showed no significant decline in cognitive function over the ten-year period. These people had two factors in common: they did not carry any of the apolipoprotein E4 genes (often associated with Alzheimer's disease), and they had little or no signs of diabetes or atherosclerosis. Other factors that have also been implicated in age-related cognitive decline are obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure. Indeed, researchers have suggested that risk factors for cognitive decline; what's bad for the heart is also bad for the brain.

Ref: Herzog, C. & Dunlosky, J. 1996. The Aging of practical memory: an overview. Erber, J.T., Szuchman, L.T & Rothberg, S. T. 1990. Everyday memory failure. Haan, M.N., Shemanski, L., Jagust, W.J., Manolino, T.A. & Kuller, L. 1999.

Friends, I will never never say, or think that because I forget "things" it is because of my age.

Carolyn & All-- I look forward to returning to the beginning of this seminar and reading every word. What an amazing woman Dr. Diamond is.

Carolyn, I've admired your posts dating back to 2004 and regret your loss. What a keen mind and good heart you have. But a serious loss, particularly one that seems unfairly timed, assaults the strongest spirit. I felt acid-like physical pain a decade ago on learning our daughter in her early twenties would lose her eyesight. She's kept it well beyond what the doctors expected and drives to an interesting job as production coordinator and supervisor at a top NYC caterer. (I recall Carolyn has a daughter with an important and impressive position.)

Then our beautiful and angelic daughter-in-law (She was a teacher of the year out of 2,000 in her county) had a recoverable heart attack but suffered brain damage from being trapped in her car without treatment for twenty minutes. Further, the doctors couldn't imagine she'd come out of her coma with significant ability and failed to take steps to protect her body from the brain damage.

This radiant forty-two-year-old sat up weeks later, chatted with friends, our son, and her six-year-old daughter for several days until she was overtaken by a hospital germ--perhaps staph. She speaks fewer words but looks forward to visits from her child and others and expects to get well. But her doctors and minister have convinced her parents and our son that after two years to continue to treat her for illnesses would be a cruelty to her and all concerned because her arms and legs have been allowed to become useless. Most hospitals discourage preservation of brain-damaged patients, though it's been demonstrated that MRI's merely represent lack of activity and not necessarily brain cell death, as Beth proved. For awhile, we lived a miracle.

An aware, severely brain-damaged loved one is one of the most horrific situations a human being can face. Our son spends two hours a day with his wife while caring for a daughter with few breaks. Beth was so beloved that three hundred adult visitors kept a vigil in the first week, and a couple dozen continue to visit weekly.

Experiencing such a tragedy, even though we have two middle-aged children, we both felt "What are we still doing here? What contribution are we making compared to hers?" The cosmic injustice of the tragedy still overcomes us and always will. Our two families realized that in a sense she'd been like our emissary to God. She'd lifted us up. And it turned out that one five-foot-tall lady had done the same for many others.

Life will never be the same for us. So I think of Katie Couric's loss of a husband and sister to cancer, then learning she and her mother must deal with her father's recent Parkinson's diagnosis. And the English cooking show host who unexpectedly lost husband, mother, and sister in a two or three years. And Joan Didion's challenged daughter and her ultimate loss of both husband and the older child in just over a year. "The Year of Magical Thinking"--book and play.

Simply surviving a loss requires courage and facing up to change. Even seekng creative responses. We have to call upon all our intelligence and skills to create an existence that honors those we love--both past and present. Some days the body is unwilling to follow the mind's will. We feel as if the life force has been sucked out of us. But as William Faulkner said on receiving the Nobel, we must prevail in the face of the overwhelming. This too we humans can do, being gifted with the greatest courage to meet the greatest pain of all living creatures.

Formerly Barb34

Ann, I had migraines for about 30 years at the rate of about one a month, not much if we compare with others suffering from it, but I know now what food triggers them and I avoid it. They are not only caused by food intolerance, but also by stress I have learned. Combining the two though makes them worse. Also I read that they tend to go away after 60 and I hardly ever have a headache any more.

I often wondered if it affected the brain. But I must look it up in Google one day.

I agree with you Barbara, Corolyn has graced our boards for many years and I always enjoy her insightful and heart felt posts. I was sad to read the tragedies that surrounded your family and I hope that in the future you will have a break. Take heart, this too shall pass.

Thank you Boyd for the information from Nasa about brain exercises. I don't have 3D glasses but I am sure it is very interesting with those on. I agree that the computer is an eye on the world. I connect with my large family through email when we want to have family reunion. They come from far and wide.

My question to Dr. Diamond is that: as human beings are different from animals, the human capacity to act using it's own will power, to choose a certain path towards positive living, or to use his self healing power through faith, are powerful aspects of brain preservation, is it not? I would appreciate to hear your thoughts about the power of the higher Self on the human brain. That one which gives us the capacity to feel unconditional love, to blissful thoughtless awareness, to choose the life of the middle path by meditation (the present: here/now) despite the hardships of life,

Françoise

My daughter asks a hard question. It will be transmitted for answer to Dr. Diamond. Thank you for your interest my love.

senior moments

and words. I've always been verbally fluent until the last dozen years when simple words escape me. I'm also very visual, an artist for a lifetime and I can see the object or scene that I'm trying to discuss clearly in my mind. This is indeed a SENIOR happening for me. It's frustrating, often embarrassing, and clearly a function of aging.

Claire

Because we went through this article a little fast, perhaps we could examine more in depth the section called Diet and Brain Growth.

Lets elaborate on the chemical called neurotransmitters because it involves thinking and understanding.

"When we first started working in the field over 50 years ago, there were, perhaps, five or six known neurotransmitters. The other day I called one of the major researchers in the field, Floyd Bloom, the former editor of Science magazine who works at the Salk Institute in San Diego. I asked him how many neurotransmitters are known today. He said at least a hundred. So you get a glimpse of the magnitude of all these chemical reactions occurring at the millions of synaptic junctions in our brains. It is a wonder that any two people think alike or understand each other with such a dynamic nervous system that must keep all these transmitters in proper balance.

Another component of nerve cell branches I would like to mention here is the "covering" on the axon. It is called myelin. Myelin is a white fatty covering on the axon that serves to speed up the conduction of electrical impulses. The diameter of the axon is directly proportional to the amount of myelin surrounding it. Myelin is extremely important for the well-being of the nervous system. You have heard of diseases such as ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, and MS, multiple sclerosis. These are called demyelinating diseases, because that is the essential feature: the person loses this insulating covering on the nerve fiber, the myelin.

I can see better now how important diet is in keeping the nervous system healthy.

"Now let's take a minute to look at how dendrites develop. Here you can see a sample of nerve cells from the frontal lobe of a newborn human's cerebral cortex, just behind the forehead.(This was a Power Point presentation to students that we don't see) You'll notice that there are very few dendritic branches on the nerve cells in the newborn; however, by the age of the two years, an enormous amount of branching will have occurred. Not all of those dendrites will have made appropriate connections yet. And that probably explains why two-year-olds are sometimes difficult to deal with!

As some of you will remember after this long but important digression, the issue at hand is the critical role that diet plays in the health of the brain, whether during pre- and postnatal development or throughout that long period of "postnatal" life that constitutes the rest of our journey on earth. When you have a rudimentary understanding of the key role of dendrites and axons and neurotransmitters, you can better appreciate how important it is that protein be a major component of the diet, particularly for the fetus in utero and in the early stages of infancy when these cells and their branches are actively developing."

We are made aware of the importance of a balanced nutrition to keep the body including the brain as healthy as we possible can. Protein being a very important nutrient.

This is a study on the affect of stress on the brain. Many more sections to look at in this study than:

How your brain responds to stress,
Stress and noise, Females are more affected by noise
Gender responses to stress
Stress can shrink Hippocampus, cause memory loss, Alzheimer's disease
London taxi drivers, renown for their exceptional memory of London streets have larger than usual hippocampi.

I was once in a taxi in London and they are amazing for knowing their way around.

"Why We Lose Our Memory

Stress hormones divert blood glucose to exercising muscles, therefore the amount of glucose – hence energy – that reaches the brain's hippocampus is diminished. This creates an energy crisis in the hippocampus which compromises its ability to create new memories. That may be why some people can't remember a very traumatic event, and why short-term memory is usually the first casualty of age-related memory loss resulting from a lifetime of stress.

Stress Hormones and Aging-Study

Elizabeth Gould, Researcher at Princeton University, notes that "levels of stress hormones rise with aging, and are very likely to be responsible for the decline in neurogenesis. (the formation of new neurons) The good news, though, is that the aging brain doesn't appear to lose the ability to generate new neurons," when you relieve the stress."

The things you learn in studying this is amazing I find. Can we stay calm all the time? when is it OK to loose our temper?

Today's newspaper carried an article about Cathryn Jakobson Ramin's new book called "Carved in Sand: When Attention Fails and Memory Fades in Midlife"

Well, those midlife moments are mostly due to being overloaded with work and rapid technology. But her interview mentions some interesting points.

Challenges--new modes of doing--mentioned were new types of exercise, including salsa dancing (for midlifers and maybe our 89-year-old good gene participant Boyd), word games, music or language lessons, or whatever you're not previously wired for.

Except for the simplest activities, she advises against multi-tasking for anyone. It leads to incompetence.

There's an Oprah-recommended book which suggests doubling up on activities to save time. And one's sanity? I suspect the reason for Ramin's book as well as "millions spent on computer-based memory exercises" is our increasing need to do more. Though my obsession with media hasn't waned, what I like about retirement is that there's less I actually have to do. I do agree with Barbara that one can miss work that helps people. But not enough that I'd want to do more than a little.

I read part of "The Brain: A User's Guide" a few weeks ago, but I forget what it said.

I would appreciate Dr. Diamond's opinion on Ramin's experience with Provigil, now being prescribed as a cognitive enhancer. She felt no side effects (sleeplessness, etc.) and uses it occasionally, though she expects a superior drug for enhancement will be available before long.

I wonder about that title. Mid-Life? how old is mid-life?

Perhaps that is what happens to our memory as we age, there is so much of it stored in the brain that recent events just becomes a small event among all the others and its gets lost in the suffle. Talking with healthy seniors I find them able to recall events further back than what happened yesterday, but does that mean that they have an impaired memory?

How does driving to work in city traffic affect the brain? Is there a way to alleviate the negative affects (stress) it might have because people spend from 10 to 15 hours a week driving to and from work.

I frankly do not understand the technical part of memory...From the very beginning, my Mother insisted on my not having a list to use in grocery shopping at perhaps age 11 or 12 (when I could cross the street by myself) and the rest is history...I am almost 82 years of ago and still recall names of people I went to grade school with..sometimes astound my older brother by coming up with the dog tag ident number he had during Word War 2..but he remembers it,too. Always try to remember names when introduced and actually am not bad in coming up with it upon meeting again a couple of days later..Names seem to be a bore to some people, but I love them....short ones, long ones and particularly cultures other than mine. The computer has been my salvation since I chose to get one over 2 years ago and "chutzpah" long dorment,has erupted with a vengeance and I am happy as possible in my own little world. Don't mean to sound selfish or selfless...I know what I am and I am not all that bad....

not bad at all. who said?

I use my cell phone now for most calls because it's small light and knows all my numbers. OTOH I've forgotten many of them since I don't have to dial them. it's a bit of this and a bit of that. . . .

Claire

Winsum...I am awful with new fangled things like cell phones which my kids have insisted that I use..I think if necessary, I could take a computer apart, but to comtemplate making a cell phone call,makes my blood run cold...I think it's practice, practice,but have too many other phone outlets that I am more sure comfortable using...Such problems...and silly ones at that

I use it because it's much clearer with the added ear plug and hands free. I did learn a lesson the hard way however.

I talk regularly to a friend in Finland through a service Called GORILLA that costs me only six cents a minute for such calls. I forgot to go through them one time and simply hit the button with the required number for Finland and paid a horrific fee per minute for that error.

Keeping it charged is another MUST DO also. to each etc. etc.

Claire

Good for you, dvera. Finding chutzpah and taking it to a new level. Chutzpah is good for the soul. Better than chicken soup' I've found a new fountain of youth in committing reckless acts.That would be my answer to Eloise's question:

'How does driving to work in city traffic affect the brain? Is there a way to alleviate the negative affects (stress)?'

I find it exhilarating. When I want to get the adrenalin going, and feel alive, and get all the mental cylinders firing, I get into my car and tool back and forth on the expressway going into town. Weaving in and out of traffic, tailgating some monolithic thirty-six wheel monster, dragged along in the vacuum behind him, or clearing a pack of slow movers and breaking out into the clear, with a sharp lookout for radar...these kids on their roller coasters don't know what fun is.

Who cares about a little memory loss. Did we worry about it when we were young? Of course not. Every morning it was: behold, all things are new. Let it be that way now. If it comes to an awkward moment, and you are expected to recall some inconsequential little fact, fall back on those other cognitive neurons in the brain which supply us with imagination.

If all else fails, try chutzpah. That can get one through a lot mental traffic confusion. Whatever works. We should never stop being resourceful.

Jonathon you are a menace on the road.

grow up.

Claire

Jonathan....I believe in live and let live...if those are your jollies more power to you but....please make sure that innocent people and older citizens like me who have paid their dues,are no where near you when you have your 'throw all caution to the wind" hat on. ...but really, methinks you are just trying to put us on to get a rise out us. good try but not exactly original...

Jonathon - I hear you loud and clear! I think that continuing to drive a car, keeps the mind and senses alert and active. Unless of course, a person has a physical problem that precludes them driving such as (eyesight, coordination, etc.)

I always drive my car the 350 miles from Northern to Southern California to visit one of my daughters. The trip down Interstate 5, is an amazing experience. The two lanes in both directions are constantly crowded with trucks and all vehicles driving at speeds up into the 80's, hours on end. You have to be sharp and alert to keep up. Exhilarating! Then you drop down into Los Angeles and it's "White knuckle time" when you hit the city! Bumper to bumper freeways and city traffic. When I first get there it's a little scary, but soon becomes invigorating and a constant challenge.

I see that Ramin's book is featured in The May O Magazine. (I saw it in my doctor's office and found it so interesting I picked up a copy.) I haven't read that article yet but from her interview in the big city paper, I know that Ramin was in her forties (now 50) and refers to people around that age as "midlife."

She was concerned that her memory was not as sharp in her forties as it had been. Her doctor did a thorough exam. Her thyroid could have been a factor, and that was treated. She then did massive research on memory and what might enhance it.

I can't help noticing that this (the brain and memory) is a really hot topic lately. In fact, the limits of consciousness (long distance imaging, intentionality, etc.) seems to be a trendy interest as well. A lot of Ramin's information could have come from Dr. Diamond's book as it echoes it. I expect it's in her bibliography.

Eloise, I am serious about a question seeking Dr. Diamond's opinion on Provigil and the future of other cognitive enhancers. A friend says her Mother's anti-Alzheimer's drug merely lengthened the family's ordeal. I imagine the stage would makes a difference. Thanks.

I believe Johnathan was teasing about his wild ride. He's otherwise rational. I have a similar reluctance to add that little smiley face to my satire. It can seem so patronizing. Though I appreciate it when others choose to use it--no double takes are necessary.

I don't know how t do it back. I have to believe that Jonathan was kidding either that or senility is coming on fast. vbg

claire

Winsum, I almost forgot how to do it, though I had to use it a lot during an addictive nine-week toot on a shopping site, where someone was always having a literal day: "I hope you're not really planning to blow up a BestBuy!" (Just a hypothetical)

If you don't have the ability to add a ready-made face, type : (a colon) for two eyes and ) (close parenthesis) for the smile.

Cute, huh? You can get lists of these symbols online. There's a word for these and there are many; I'll check the list in my "favorites"

Some smiley faces you can use in SeniorNet discussions:

Emoticon Help

Thank you, Marcie.

Claire, those symbols are indeed called "emoticons."

The word just slipped right off my gliall cells or whatever.

I have an awful time with parenthesis so will use the Big Toothy Grin which is easy

. claire

I have an awful time with parenthesis so will use the Big Toothy Grin which is easy

. or maybe

which is pretty cute too.

claire

I like your post Jonathan "or clearing a pack of slow movers and breaking out into the clear, with a sharp lookout for radar" I did that yesterday and I was afraid I would get caught, but I passed a slow moving motorcycle and he followed me to my destination and gave me a lecture when I got out of the car. To me driving in the city is both stressful and exhilarating.

Barbara, could you write your question for Doctor Diamond and it will be transmitted to her. I didn't want to write the question for you in case I changed a word. She mentioned before that she is not involved in pharmaceuticals. She is a Professor of Neuro Anatomy at Berkeley University in California. But you can still ask her and we will see what her response is.

To keep in constant wonderment about nature, art, science keeps us young at heart, not forgetting that "love conquers all".

Dr. Diamond--

Do you have an opinion on the increasing use of the drug Provigil--previously used to treat sleep disturbances--as a cognitive enchancer, reportedly with few side effects?

(This isn't a personal question; I'm just curious.)

Dvera, After reading your comment about your mother making you remember a grocery list, I though that for short-term memory exercise I would recall everything from the time I got up. For a split second I couldn't remember what I did, then I made a conscious effort to remember and listed everything I one after the other. I was surprised that I did so much. At 7 o'clock, after checking this discussion and emails, watched 15 min. of news then I went out for short walk, had coffee with my son-in-law downstairs and talked about this discussion. Then I put fixings for a stew on the stove, had lunch, went to the three different stores for supplies, had a short nap, checked in with the discussion again, had dinner.

I want to do this every evening for short-term memory exercises. Also I am going to try to remember names, one of my worst short-term memory problems. Thank you for your advice.

Barbara, your question is on its way to Dr. Diamond.

Woo-woo, Boyd, you're a transcendentalist--very Eastern.

I agree with Claire and BarbaraA. Rats have long been accepted as an efficacious substitute for man in the laboratory, I worked with them in a year of psychology (back in the days when even the beginning courses were scientific and not the junior version often offered today.)

So rats are good to study. But even the evidence of the postings here suggest that man and woman have the ability to adapt in numerous and miraculous ways a rat cannot. For one--we do not need a partner in our cage. In fact, some humans have apparently thrived living a hermit-like existence. We homo sapiens can substitute other sustaining elements for human proximity. And it doesn't necessarily involve a cat.

The complexity of our human brains allows us to nurture and entertain ourselves in a thousand ways.

BarbaraA makes a brillant point. Get a massage! Revel in being touched. After all, the students didn't really LOVE those rodents. The leap from stroking to that great unknown LOVE is one I wouldn't have expected a scientist to make. And that mysterious and evanescent thing can be hard to come by and hold onto.

So live alone, revel in the wonders of nature, and seek joy wherever your (nearly) limitless mind can find it! You're one of a kind of the highest lifeform in the universe.

It may be traumatic for family to know their loved one has an illness like Alzheimers but would you not want the person you love to retain some abilties for a longer period? Some people get Alzheimers very young. I am sure it is as much of an ordeal for patients as it is for families. I find it hard to understand someone saying the drugs only prolong the agony for relatives. I do not believe in prolonging life when the Alzheimers patient gets to the stage where they refuse to eat. A feeding tube would not be my choice for myself. I do believe in making sure that cases detected early get the best drugs and that they can live some more of their life that includes the interaction with loved family members.

We've compiled your questions and Dr. Diamond's responses to date at http://www.seniornet.org/php/default.php?PageID=8441.

Please continue to ask your questions in the next few days.

I mentioned "stage" because a patient in an early stage would benefit from a memory enhancing drug. Later, when the patient becomes agitated, given to bouts of rage, self-abusive, and incontinent, most relatives tend to decide that the loved one wouldn't want to be provided with fleeting moments of memory.

When my friend's mother passed away two weeks ago, she felt "relieved." Whenever I'd asked her how SHE was doing, the friend would just shake her head in despair but always seemed to value being asked. I guess it's a situation we can only guess at. Still, our daughter-in-law, a Teacher of the Year in her county, lies brain-damaged in a nursing home after an accident, so we have some sense of the hopelessness and stress. Our son and her daughter, just turned eight, visit her nearly every day, and we worry about the toll it may take on her.

Marcie Thank you for Dr. Diamond's responses. I am learning a lot from this discussion. Thank you also Eloise for bring it to us.

Eloise, this has been a fascinating discussion, from which I'm learning much. I'm grateful to you for bringing it to us and for Dr. Diamond for her participation and answering the questions. And to all the posters, especially the posts about sleep, memory, and Jonathan's driving lessons. I do very well when driving by myself, even halfway across country and even on the dreaded beltway around the nation's capital. (Although I'm a little surprised my children have enough confidence in me to drive their children on it.) But, trying to carry on a discussion while driving is difficult for me, and probably not wise.

THis discussion about the aging brain has made me wonder about my hearing loss, which has been occuring over the past 40 years. I hear, but often don't understand. SPEED is my enemy, and often I think "if only they'd talk a little slower." I was simply blaming my ears, but now am wondering if it's something slowing down in the process of understanding. Although it's easy to keep up with the captioning.

Barbara - Your DILs situation is bad but miracles have happened with brain injuries. Your DIL is still there. My little niece was hit by a car at 100 km per hour. How she lived is a miracle. She is now 19 and working in an indigenous persons community in outback Australia. She won a Cambridge award for business last year. My sister worked with my niece one to one with brain gym which includes teaching the body to begin all over again. She began with crawling like a baby. I don't think brain injured people get the therapy they need because its so intensive and costs so much. My niece was lucky her parent was very informed and was able to spend so much one to one time with her supplementing what was given to her under Accident Compensation in the way of therapies. For two years after my niece started back at school she had to wear a brain injury helmet at all times and she had to have a teacher aide. The only thing is that my niece who had been very happy go lucky now has a very serious disposition and suffers from excruiating migraines for weeks or months on end at times. It is now many years since the accident and she will never regain that sunny personality she had.

Carolyn

Want to learn more about your own memory? Well use this website to learn.

Human Memory

On this site, you can test your own memory. However, Internet Explorer asks that you use an Active X. I didn't use it but the test ran anyway. If you wish to test your memory, here you go.

Memory Test

It was fun.

Bill H

Barbara, I totally agree with you that humans have resources that lab animals don't have. Also with the word 'love', I think it was just a simple way to put it for students perhaps so they would understand what she meant when animals felt secure instead of threatened by predators.

Thank you Marcie for putting a link to this discussion on the Home Page along with the questions to Dr. Diamond.

Pedln, I know you and I guarantee you that your brain is functioning at full capacity. My sister who is losing her hearing day by day is going for lip reading classes soon, she is a gregarious 82 yr old and she says the same thing as you that those speaking with her have to look at her directly in order to hear what we say and she can read lips a bit, but she is not entirely satisfied with that.

Carolyn, imagine what that woman had to go through to start all over again after a brain injury, bravo for her, she deserves a medal.

How good is it for seniors to use the computer? How long is long enough? What is good on the internet besides SeniorNet and emails?

We only have 4 days left, have we covered enough? are there more questions to ask Dr. Diamond?

Best of the Brain By William Saletan The five biggest neuroscience developments of the year.

http://www.slate.com/id/2164996&GT1=9330

Bill, I wanted to read everything in your link and it took almost an hour. It's is so informative and touches on all the things we studied since this discussion began. Thank you so much. I asked Marcie to put it in the heading for those who want to go back to read it.

Thank you Ray for that article too. I will read it later today.

Thank you very much. We've added that link to the Slate article in the heading.

I did have a question ..since both my mother , one of 11 and my father one of 13 all had thier siblings survive to adulthood. One sister of my father died in her early 20's from what was called"Gallopping consumption" the rest for the most part lived to thier 80's closer to 90 than 80 and many lived to be almost 100 ..my paternal grandmother was a 100...the doctors said she died of old age.. and a member of my poetry group who died last year at 98 was still active in class and wrote some of the best poems in our classes.. all of my family members and I suspect my poetry friend were active all their lives...regardless what occupation they had..I know from what my relatives told me and what I saw they ate a lot of fresh food, home cooked foods, foods I would call natural and kept their minds and bodies active...none had Alzhiemers or were senile...does the fact that they ate a variety of foods.and few prepared foods make a difference in their life span and thier active lives?I will be 80 this year and am still active ...I dont eat a lot of so called junk food.. prefering my own cooking .and keep active ...just wondering if older people who lived until they were in thier 80's and 90's as my family members did benefited by an active life style and natural food ie sans preservatives?

anna

Here is the response of Dr. Diamond to your question, Annafair - )

It appears to me that they proved they had the right combination of good food and stimulating activities to be healthy for 90-100 years. How fortunate to have a lot of fresh home cooked foods! Obviously no one carried the genes for Alzheimer's disease.

Here are the responses to the two previous sets of questions:

Q (Barbara): Do you have an opinion on the increasing use of the drug Provigil--previously used to treat sleep disturbances--as a cognitive enchancer, reportedly with few side effects? (This isn't a personal question; just curious.)

Do you have any opinons about the state of our understanding of how the brain works and the use of Aricept or other drugs that are prescribed for people with mild dementia to improve their cognitive functioning?.

A (MCD): I am not trained to answer the kind of questions you offer here. I have always wanted to improve mental function through the environmental influences, not specific drugs. But one can read different answers on the web. For example, this one on aricept, which I respect because the references are given and their protective view provided at the end of the article.

PS I wonder if early Alzheimer's could be reduced if the individuals met with groups of congenial, intelligent people who followed our 5 items to improve cerebral cortical functions based on our rat experiments: diet, exercise, challenge, newness, love?

Re whether aricept has any role with regard to cognitive function in early Alzhiemers, the only trial we could find that specifically addressed early-stage Alzheimer's Disease (AD) was published in 2004 in Archives of Neurology [1]. In this multicentre, randomised, double-blind, 24-week, placebo-controlled study patients were enrolled with early-stage Alzheimer disease. Patients were randomized in an approximately 2:1 ratio to donepezil, 5 mg/d, for the first 6 weeks, with a forced escalation to 10 mg/d thereafter (n = 96), or placebo (n = 57). The overall conclusion of the trial was:

"These data suggest significant treatment benefits of donepezil in early-stage Alzheimer disease, supporting the initiation of therapy early in the disease course to improve daily cognitive functioning." This study was included in the two recent systematic reviews of cholinesterase inhibitors. The first, a Cochrane Systematic Review, included 13 RCTs and concluded [2]:

"The three cholinesterase inhibitors are efficacious for mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. It is not possible to identify those who will respond to treatment prior to treatment. There is no evidence that treatment with a ChEI is not cost effective. Despite the slight variations in the mode of action of the three cholinesterase inhibitors there is no evidence of any differences between them with respect to efficacy. There appears to be less adverse effects associated with donepezil compared with rivastigmine. It may be that galantamine and rivastigmine match donepezil in tolerability if a careful and gradual titration routine over more than three months is used. Titration with donepezil is more straightforward and the lower dose may be worth consideration."

The other systematic review, published as part of UK Health Technology Assessment [3] gave the following comment on the clinical effectiveness of donepezil:

"Thirteen published RCTs and one unpublished RCT were included. The results suggest that donepezil is beneficial when assessed using global and cognitive outcome measures. There appears to be a dose-response relationship with higher doses more likely to produce benefit. Mixed results were demonstrated on measures of function and behaviour and mood; over shorter durations of follow-up (up to 6 months) donepezil may be beneficial when assessed using these outcome measures." This systematic review also discusses early stage AD, but only in relation to rivastigmine, stating:

"They conclude that the greatest cost savings (from a societal perspective) are likely to be realised when drug treatment starts in the early stages of the disease. However, they point out that the conclusions are dependent on extrapolating from 6-month trial data and warn that study results should be viewed with caution."

References

Seltzer B et al. Efficacy of Donepezil in Early-Stage Alzheimer Disease. Arch Neurol. 2004;61:1852-1856. (http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/61/12/1852)
Cochrane Collaboration. Cholinesterase inhibitors for Alzheimer's disease for Alzheimer's disease. 2005 (http://www.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab005593.html)
Loveman E et al. The clinical and cost-effectiveness of donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine and memantine for Alzheimer's disease. 2006 (http://www.ncchta.org/execsumm/summ1001.htm)

Date Posted : 29/03/2006

Evidence:
Evidence 1:- 0
Evidence 2:- 2
Evidence 3:- 1
Evidence 4:- 0
Evidence G:- 0

This document is presented for information purposes only. The document cannot and should not be used as a basis for diagnosis or choice of treatment, and is in no way intended to replace professional medical care or attention by a qualified practitioner. ATTRACT is not responsible or liable for, directly or indirectly, ANY form of damage whatsoever resulting from the use/misuse of information contained in or implied by these documents.

There is a link in the heading of this discussion to the collated Q&A with Dr. Diamond to date at http://www.seniornet.org/php/default.php?PageID=8441

How appropriate that someone asked this important question about Aricept. And Dr. Diamond has given us a generous and non-condescending reply.

Carolyn--Sometime I'll tell you about our son's fight to save the life of his wife against the wishes of her parents. (The father, a professor of engineering, apparently could not bring himself to research the internet.) Our son's hopes--and the results of our research--were briefly supported, but the miracle (Beth was sitting up and talking) gave way to a hospital-acquired virus--later denied. These patients are vulnerable to infection.

I hope it's pertinent to this discussion to note that the mri's of stroke patients and the brain-damaged often give the appearance of brain death, when the cells are merely quiescent. Not only does an mri dark area often have the ability to become active, brain cells, as Dr. Diamond discusses in her article, can fully regenerate and create new cells.

We now know that even people registering as brain dead on a machine can on rare occasions return to full health. Current machines are inadequate to evaluate brain life.

The medical establishment for the most part is painfully aware of tens of thousands of stroke victims and brain-damaged people lying in hospital beds and care facilities throughout the country. They are aware that such patients drain taxpayer and insurance dollars as well as family resources. They also sadly observe the ongoing stress and false hopes of relatives.

As a result, relatives are seldom told of the techniques doctors fail to use and the care they do not give. A few doctors, one a neurologist at a Boston hospital (an NBC report is archived on the net), lead a little-known crusade for better care for brain-affected patients. The Boston surgeon has spoken to neurologists across the country.

When a patient enters the hospital with a suspected swelling of the brain, it's a safe and simple procedure to drill a small hole at the top of the forehead to relieve swelling and reduce brain damage. But through habit and ideology, most doctors fail to take this simple step.

The stroke or brain-damaged person can benefit from the "enriched environment" that Dr. Diamond speaks of (conversation, touch, music, moving the body, etc.) In addition, it's necessary to prevent "foot drop" in the event that the patient may someday sit or walk. Therapy for the legs, hands, etc. is essential if there is hope for some quality of life.

In all this, someone must be an informed and powerful advocate for the patient. An advocate can now learn about as much as the doctor knows about the possibility for the patient's recovery by asking questions and making full use of the internet. There are numerous sites related to conditions of the brain.

I have long been a student of frequencies in the role of healing,such as specific color wave lengths, sound/music, and just plain 'frequencies' from a frequency generator.

I have personally witnessed seemingly magical transformations in others, and myself, with these kinds of therapies. In my trips to Central America 15-20 years ago, when there were fewer cell phones, and my recent trip to China to study Qigong in Sichuan, I personally noticed changes in my ability to 'tap into' better healing states, even 'psychic' states, that diminished and almost disappeared within 24 hours of returning to the US. I could literally feel a pressure until I finally felt 'squished down' to 6-8 inches all around me (compared to 6-15 feet around me out of the country with no compressed feeling).

I am wondering about the effects of electric wiring in homes/businesses where we spend virtually all of our time, effects from all the electrical gizmos we use day and night, and IR bombardment from cell phones and other transmissions--all are permeating our physical, mental, and etherical being, and have been shown to affect 'lower' forms of life.

What are your thoughts about such frequencies as they may affect our mind/brain system, and their capability of turning on our genes (Alzheimers, dementia, etc.)? Thank you so very much for taking time to answer our questions. And Thank You MORE for preferring behavioral approaches, rather than drugs!

Anna, how special it is to read about your large family who lived such long and fruitful lives. It reinforces my own beliefs that, as you mention, home cooked food from fresh ingredients has a large part in keeping the body, hence the brain, as healthy as it can be right up to a very advanced age. Thank you for telling us. The question was posed to Dr. Diamond.

How furtunate we are to have Dr. Diamond answer our questions and expanding on her article Successful Aging of the Healthy Brain. Thank you so much.

Many subjects were brought up by participants that, I am sure, were on everybody's mind, but thanks to a discussion such as this we can have a broader spectrum where we can draw from for a long time.

About driving a car, I just wanted to clarify that an elderly person still driving is a concern for those who know how old that person is and the Licence Bureau in Quebec requires that after 80 we have to pass a medical and opthalmologic exam every two years in order to keep our licence.

I am sure that our doctor wouldn't want to be blamed for not stopping an elderly person from driving a car after they have lost the ability to drive safely. Last week I heard of a 93 year old man had passed all medical exams and his licence was renewed.

Thank you Kaz 60 for an interesting post about electrical frequencies. The following question will be passed on to Dr. Diamond:

"What are your thoughts about such frequencies as they may affect our mind/brain system, and their capability of turning on our genes (Alzheimers, dementia, etc.)?"

Dr. Diamond,

Are you familiar with Dr. Bruce Lipton's book, "Biology of Belief"? His basic premise of this book and others he has written (www.brucelipton.com) is that the "brain" of the cell is the "membrane" and acts like a 'drumhead', if you will, that contains receptors and transmitters to the frequencies and soundwaves coming in from neighboring cells, and from our outer external environment. Chemical interactions in the membrane itself interact with these vibrations to direct the actions of the cell, including the DNA to replicate, express genes, carry out normal/abnormal body functioning, etc.

Basically, Dr. Lipton is saying that yes we have genes, but the vibrational energy in our environment (internal and external) is what turns their expression on--that this expression does not come from the genes themselves. And thought is an external vibrational energy in itself--by changing our "internal dialogue" (and spoken word) we can chnge our state of well-being and health.

Dr. Lipton prefers Psych-K to realize permanent changes in our mental and physiological programming. It is an elegant adaptation of Brain Gym (Educational Kinesiology), which has proven its merits on many levels for the past 20 years. There are many ways to access and change one's thinking and unconscious patterns.

What are your thoughts on Dr. Lipton's premise that "genes don't control us, that we can actually have an effect on controlling our gene expression?"

I cant give you the words to describe things in the proper sence,I was born in 1918,and schooling above fourteen was not on our agenda. but I have thoughts and ideas that will describe some of the mentioned

exressions.I was the elder of two sisters,she looked up to me,which made me feel important,and has never left me.

that would seem to indicate enviroment?Ihave amazed poeple by some of the things I can still do both phyically and Mentally.

it sounds like Iam boasting when I am trying to fathom whether it is strengh of will ! or something that would have been any way.

I was terrified of storms ,the dark.now I take it all in stride Iam trying to say do we do these things because the brain tells us ,or just using our own will power.hope you understand gladys

Good for you, Gladys.

Kaz, you'd have many friends on the topic of the dangers of electrical signals, etc. in the Ions organization, founded by NASA's Ed Mitchell. One of his friends, Astrophysicist Jim Beal, spoke to a local Ions group (for three hours the first time!) Fascinating. I've since heard another study (in Scandinavia, I believe) bore out his concerns.

We can unplug our appliances--environmentally friendly, too) and avoid high tension wires. Other advice is available on the web.

The frequency topic sounds interesting.

A PS on stroke and brain trauma--There was success in at least a few cases giving comatose or low-response patients drugs normally given to Parkinson's sufferers. One patient regressed--somewhat reminiscent of Oliver Sachs' experience told in his book and the Robin Willams movie "Awakenings."

gladys!!! love so good to see you in Curious minds.

Gladys, welcome to this Curious Minds, your question has been passed on to Dr. Diamond. I hope we will see each other again soon, you are such a vibrant woman and I hope you will have many many more years to continue doing what you do. Thank you for coming in.

Barbara, We will send your question to Dr. Diamond "Are you familiar with Dr. Bruce Lipton's book, "Biology of Belief"?

About vibrations, I avoid holding on to the television remote because I feel its vibrations when I am holding it and believe that the current travels inside my body and I don't know whether that current is good or bad or neither for us.

Are there more questions to ask Doctor Diamond about our brain?

Read another interesting article about the aging brain http://www.slate.com/id/2165122/?GT1=9330

I found out what "The Action of Alcohol on the Brain does here from digging into the Human Memory link in the heading, so much to learn there.

Unfortunately this dicussion only lasts two weeks and I have so much to learn yet from very knowledgeable participants and from Dr. Diamond on brain health and functions. Do take some time to post your thoughts on the subject so we can learn more.

This is a very educational, informative discussion. I need to ask: How does one view the dendrites in the cerebral cortex? Can they be examined and measured by an MRI or an EEG?

Eloise My dad used to say to determine mid-life you take your age today and divide it in half. That is mid life. You see, it changes yearly for us.

I have long wondered why I can not remember very much from my childhood. It's difficult to ascertain whether these memories have been repressed, made up or merely wished for. If someone reminds me of a particular event when I was a youngster, then I can recall it, with some amount of coaxing.

I've been away for over a week and rapidly read each post so I am not sure who mentioned this fact. If you don't use your brain you will lose it. It wasn't described in that manner but more or less if you expect to lose brain cells you will. My FIL, upon retirement said he was going to sit in his and do nothing! He did just that and was diagnosed two years later with rapidly deterioating dementia and then full blown Alzheimers Disease. My daughter's FIL made the statement that when he retired at 60 he was going to do nothing and it would take him all day to do it. He is now diagnosed 6 years later with dementia. There has to be something to this "mind set."

Eloise--You may be referring to someone else. My questions were answered.

Kaz's discussion of brain gym concepts is another interest of astronaut Ed Mitchell's Ions group which investigates or considers things that may not be studied by scientists such as Dr. Diamond.

Some ideas looked at by Ions are purely speculative, and some may be tested using the scientific method. These theories or questions aren't always the first to obtain grant money, because they tend to question current technology or beliefs. Two are: the dangers of electric signals in our environment and the Princeton consciouness experiment which appeared to show earth changes simultaneous with major human events.

The Ions organization fills a need of questing minds. They have a magazine and have recently introduced a (pricier) membership at $10 a month that offers online and telephone conferencing features (similar to Deepak Chopra's group). It's a clear step above many of late night radio "Coast to Coast"'s interviews and its newsletter. None of the Ions-associated astronauts or scientists involved claim to have been abducted by aliens.

Alien abduction--there's an interesting perception of the human brain--is usually associated with a state of sleep paralysis. I was so disappointed reading two abduction books--Whitley Streiber, etc. a few years ago. All but a couple of the handful of stories were suspect--fun to read, though.

After hearing about it decades ago, I've experienced the momentary inability to move on waking called "sleep paralysis" twice in the last few years. Disturbing, but thank goodness. there were no aliens in my room. Next time, maybe?

Hi Gladys. So nice to hear from you. How have you been keeping? Just the other day I wondered if I should call you and invite you to go for a drive in my new Porsche.

That's a good question you have for the doctor. I'm very curious what she will say to that. My guess is, yes, the brain makes demands on us that are purely selfish. The healthy brain seems to crave excitement. Turn me on. Light up my life, it seems to be crying out all the time. Staying young means retaining the consciousness of boredom. I got that from my very clever 8-year-old granddaughter years ago. Of course coping with the problem can take many forms. A good book will do it. A more exciting development is the growing popularity of extreme sports. Like climbing Mt. Everest. With that has come increasing interest in how the brain copes at high altitude, affected by lessening amounts of oxygen and air pressures. I think we seniors are going to benefit from increased knowledge on the subject. From what I've read about it, what the younger ones experience at high altitude, we older ones feel at sea level. Like disorientation, memory loss, impaired judgment and understanding, apathy or loss of interest in everyday things, and general slowing down of thought, etc.

So, we may very well be egged on by our brain, in its determination to remain 'young at heart'. My brain finds its jollys in high-speed maneuveres in heavy traffic. But there's a catch. The brain will not tell one if it's the wrong thing to do. Motion, in an environment that has zillions of brain cells interfacing and throwing caution to the winds is a wonderful way to go.

I've heard the capital beltway is fun. Wanna go? Do you still have your driver's license? I heard a good one the other day.

A friend of mine went to see his mother, and was concerned when he heard about the pleasure she still got out of driving her car at 93. Without a license. Wasn't she worried about getting into trouble? No, who is going to stop a little old lady like me. Did she at least have insurance? No, who would insure someone at 93?

And there's more. A policeman shortly thereafter pulled alongside on the highway and saw her knitting. Pull over! he shouted. No, she shouted back. Cardigan. But you've probably heard that part. The first part is true.

As someone else put it in a post. A fast, lively conversation presents similiar challenges and opportunities.

Jonathan how lovely to see you again ,yes any time for a ride !

I feel my mind is always chasing things round,fun really, even if it is wishful thinking,

thank you Elouise,Iam still climbing out of windows at 89,just got back from feeding the birds,which is another question my daughter says she couldnt do it ,at age 56 mind over matter? gladys

From someone that has a 3 day serious altitude problem when I get over 8,000 feet, (after that it lets up) you are right about it being a lot like the "old age" symptoms you mentioned. I found that taking iron & bonemeal/calcium does a lot of good in both cases since iron carries the oxygen in the blood. Trying to keep a balance is the hard part. I would love to hear the doctor's thoughts on this.

JONATHAN: having commuted on the Capital Beltway for years, I'm here to tell you it's only fun if you enjoy stop-and-go traffic. Now these LA freeways are another thing ...

ÉLOÏSE, this conversation is coming to an end, and I regret not having had the time to participate more vigorously.

I did have a follow-up question on Glucosamine Sulfate plus MSM used by arthritis sufferers.

It was recommended to me ten years ago in Zurich, available only by prescription. Once back home, I told the rheumatologist about it. He interrupted me before I could finish my sentence and declared, "NO MERIT!". I did not argue with him and never saw him again. I continue taking the supplement to this day.
It is interesting, however, that there has since been an about-face concerning something European physicians recommended and that American doctors also now approve of this particular supplement, which is available over the counter!

I did not submit the follow-up question because Dr. Diamond's answer to ANDY about vitamin supplements in general was very detailed and covers Glucosamine Sulfate as well.

Thank you for a wonderful job.

great discussion Éloïse - for the past week all I have had time to do is lurk but the conversation was informative and I have enjoyed the topic.

I am sorry too that this is ending and will be made Read Only after Dr. Diamond has given us answers to our last questions that were transmitted to her. It has been a wonderful discussion and you can't imagine what I have learned with you all. It certainly has increased my cerebral cortex and it is not a joke. I need stimulation such as this to keep me from falling into disrepair as I age.

I laughed so much reading Jonathan's post, thank you for your cheerfulness.

Thank you Marcie for your assistance.

Eloise, congratulations for choosing a most interesting topic. I'm certain all of us learned so much more about the psychological and physiological qualities of the human brain from your discussion.

Thank you.

Bill H

Well if this isn't nice news to read before this topic is over BBC News Health Scientists 'reverse' memory loss with two aids

Thank you Barbara, your link is very ecouraging just in case some may need it now or in the future.

I thank Doctor Diamond in the name of all participants for the time she took to answer all our questions. We all appreciate her knowledge and her presence among us. Thank you so much.

Before we close I want to thank you all again for your excellent participation, I learned so much with all the posts and I am going to try and have a better diet, do more exercise, find new things to do to challenge me and keep getting the affection I get from family and friends. I hope you will do the same for your brain health's sake.

The discussion will still be open until we have received all the answers to our questions.

I came to this discussion late, but have thoroughly enjoyed it -- and learned a lot, specially since it is something I have been thinking about a great deal. Sometimes I see very worrisome evidences of memory loss in myself, but at other times I see very high functioning abilities. For example, I am taking seminary-type courses and am making high grades. I have an intellectually stimulating job, and I can function well there. But I also see memory gaps (somebody told me something yesterday that I don't remember today or I get mixed up about time or directions). I am reassured by the fact that I can function in those higher-level things but then -- sometimes in the same day or hour -- find myself forgetting things. I guess my question is, if it's not too late to ask Dr. Diamond, or perhaps others have some thoughts, when does one start worrying about these kinds of memory lapses?

A lovely job, Eloise. Thanks to everyone.

It was good of Dr. Diamond to participate. Her observations on nutrition made me rethink my "I've eaten so well that now I can have more transfats and carbs" attitude.

An article in the May "Vogue" by gourmand Jeffrey Steingarten finally straightened me out on the fat hierarchy and how most of us have been eating the worst fats over the years.

Worst--transfats ("hydrogenated" is a clue.)

Next worst--animal fats

Second Best--olive oil

Best--Vegetable oils (corn, soy, etc.)

Steingarten says the new non-transfat Crisco is quite good. (He still prefers some butter in his piecrust.)

We need to be careful about blaming people for their illnesses and demise. Some years ago Susan Sontag, professional intellectual, wrote an entire book about how a weakness of Judeo-Christian teaching is the explicit as well as implicit tendency to blame people for their illnesses. This enables us, she said, to give less thought and time to helping the ill. We give ourselves a holiday from compassion without having appreciation for the complex factors leading to illness. And don't those who may have "dug their own graves" deserve an extra measure of compassion? If I'd read the book, I'm sure she included the New Age dictum that we can control our biology through intentionality as well as diet.

I can't help but recall that the noted vegetarian Adele Davis lived the usual 72 years, while the self-indulgent Frank Sinatra lived into his mid-eighties. But he had some serious brain issues, so let's not take chances!

Miss Sontag, with all the advantages of wealth and fame, passed away a few years ago at not very advanced age.

"No day is more important than this one,"

It is thanks to PatWest that we had this wonderful heading, she works behind the scenes but her work is asways so much appreciated. Thank you my friend.

A wonderful discussion, Eloise! You were superb and connecting with Dr. Diamond as well as the links. GREAT Job!!

jane

This has been a very interesting and informative discussion, led so ably by Eloise.

We're going to leave this discussion open for a few more days. Dr. Diamond has written us to tell us:

"Right now we are preparing for final examinations so I might be a bit delayed for a few days, but will return as soon as possible."
Kindest regards, Marian

She is making time from her busy schedule to respond to our last sets of questions during "finals" at the University. You are welcome to continue to talk about the topic until we close the discussion.

thank you Marcia ,Iam glad about that ,gladys

Thanks Barbara65, Jane, Marcie, Gladys. If we all had more time, we would learn so much more about the subject, but time marches on and I for one want to learn about other things too and where else but on SeniorNet can we have more choice to feed our hungry mind/brain. We also need a rest from all this mental activity and that takes time.

What I don't want to do is blame my old age for problems with learning because I had as much trouble remembering things when I was in primary school. When I went back to school as an adult and even as a senior my memory had improved a lot.

I don't know about you but it seems that there are only certain things that we can easily remember and I know what they are for me and I capitalize on them. Remembering names for me is harder than remembering a face, unless the name is very unusual, like a lady named Ursula I met at the pool, but if it had been Mary for instance surely would have forgotten it no matter how hard I try.

In any case I think that participants in Book discussions have to have a pretty healthy brain just to be able to follow. I feel that life is in itself an education if we allow experience be the teacher.

I don't remember talking about patience, because we need so much of it, perhaps someone could mention that while we are waiting for Doctor Diamond's answers to our questions? How important is it in your life? do you have patience or do you have to work hard at having patience?

Wow! What a facinating article by Dr.Marian Diamond! I missed out on the discussion but the few reader's comments I did read make it even more interesting. It helps to keep our brains stimulated and challenged. That is a really cool picture/diagram of the human brain, too!

Please excuse the pun, but I am so impatient, that they named a beautiful flower after me..

I'm also one that can't blame age when I don't remember something. As a young person in school my main interests were enjoying people and hated to waste time doing homework. I would do intense studying the night before a test and "ace" the test to make up for lack of daily homework. The day after the test I would promply forget what I memorized for the test. I wouldn't let my 3 kids get away with this, so guess it wasn't all a waste.

Along the way no teacher every realized what I was doing and I didn't stop to think of what a bad habit I was forming. When I get a new electronic device (GPS/camera/software) I find I still don't want to bother with details and it goes back to those bad habits rather than my age.

My father died at 95 with his brain as sharp as when he was young, his mother died at 96, also with memory intact. After her death we found boxes of little note pads where she would test herself by writing down lists birthdates of people she knew, historical dates, etc.

When Iwas youn,Iwas told Ihad a photographic memory,but have run out of film!

I seem to have graced with patience also,Iam not sure about that it could be tranquelizers.but who knows.gladys

Gladys---When Iwas youn,Iwas told Ihad a photographic memory,but have run out of film! Love it.

Tisie, Welcome, Welcome it is so good to see you here.

I don't think there is a special place in the brain for patience, but it would be so useful for turning it on when we need it. I guess it is the flip side of anger, then it's an entirely different question. Emotions are hard to control, but I forget who said that every emotion comes from the brain, including love. Any ideas someone?

I think that all encompassing love comes straight from the brain but lust comes from us picking up phermones so in this case I guess in a way the brain is a transmitter for the senses.

I heard someone say that the love we have for our children is everlasting whereas love for a partner can end. Are we genetically programmed to love our offspring I wonder? It is also true that in most cases a mothers love is very much stronger than the love of a father. This too may be biological programming.

(I quote her all the time)... that "tempers were like any other muscle in the body, the more you exercised it, the more it grew". She didn't allow any fits of temper.

I enjoyed all of your messages. There is a lot of positive stuff. Your childhood learning experiences affecting how you raised your kids,Tisie, and about your mom and dad keeping their minds sharp is great.

I loved the "ran out of film" line, Gladys.

Eloise---I think there are alot of things that affect patience, like blood pressure, feeling well, etc. Sometimes when those kinds of things are out of place, it seems like it could affect patience, so I don't think it is all in the brain. But I don't know much about it.

Kiwi Lady--You asked a very interesting question, I think. "Are we genetically programmed to love our offspring" I don't know if we are genetically programmed for this, but I think there is something guiding it. Maybe it is the knowledge that our offspring are part of us, and if they are raised by us or adopted they are in the same concept as part of us. The question got my brain cells moving!

I don't know what it is about the little yellow happy faces, GingerWright,but they always make me smile. Thank you! And, dvera, those little "impatient" flowers are so eager to show us their beauty with their reds, pinks, whites, corals, lavenders, and purples, Thanks for reminding me!

This was one of best discussions.....and thank you and everyone who made this one of the best ...anna

Was it Barbara StA who posted the link to the brain regeneration article? Isn't it amazing that it took us so long (was it Russia's Karolinska Institute?) to move a paralyzed kitty cat's legs enough to discover that new nerve pathways could help it to walk.

This retraining of adjacent nerves was the method being used on Chris Reeve, although it works best on younger people. The patient is placed in a harness and lowered onto his feet. The legs and brain are then exercized tirelessly by an assistant. "Time" this last week features a paralyzed four-year-old who's regained several abilities. (He'd simply hit his spine on the wooden arm of a sofa while jumping, as children like to do.) I believe he already walks a little.

There are only a few training centers for this therapy, but they will surely increase.

Astonishing that we all have these unexpected backup systems.

I remember doing a story on a family with a disabled child (don't remember now exactly what the child was disabled with), but they did what was called "patterning," which sounds like the same thing. They, and lots of people from their church, etc., would work with the child to move his arms and legs. The idea was that the muscles would "learn" what to do -- and I guess the brain would "learn" what to do, too -- although I think then the focus was more on the muscles.

The subject discussed has opened up a pandora's box regarding my memory...I was a member of a family who did not believe in or use words of consolation, encouragement, but if you managed to get yourself into some type of situation, be prepared to get out of it by yourself..although if you happened to be going down for the 3rd time, you might have a straw thrown to you.

I only knew that I did not want to follow that same course....when younger people came to me with their problems, I did just the opposite..."the world would not come to an end because of their situation and everything would look better in the morning".

I now find myself very uncomfortable when these people tell me how patient I was with them and how they appreciated being able to talk to me....I know I should be gracious and accept their most flattering remarks, but somehow can't seem to shake that feeling of "a thankyou will be quite enough".

I guess you have to deal with things as well as possible..

Goodness...is this a prelude to psychiatrist's couch???

Songbird, regarding "patterning" -- I remember years ago two books in our school library -- Karen and More About Karen -- who had cerebral palsy. Part of her daily treatments were the patterning exercises done with her legs.

Barbara, thank you for the comments on the book Carved in Sand -- it was also mentioned in a newspaper column by one of our local doctors. I don't think I would have picked up on it there if I hadn't remembered your commenting on it. Now it's on my ever-lenthening to-read list.

Carolyn, what do phernomes do? I looked it up but didn't quite get an answer, could you explain please?

Shirley, I remember my mother being angry sometimes at her unruly children, but I did the same thing, can you help that? tantrums, no we didn't do that.

Anna, you are too kind, thank you though. How are you these days? busy I guess if I know you.

Barbara, Amazing things happen to people who seem to recover somewhat after they looked doomed to never regain their mobility. It takes so much will power doesn't it.

Dvera, you were born an optimist weren't you? you sure don't need a Psychiatrist to me.

Hi! Pedln, nice to see you

Tomorrow I am installing my new computer and I might be offline for a bit, but who knows, it might work out well.

I am still with you, keep coming.

Songbird & all,

Because the concept of "patterning" had been around for some time, I was shocked to read in the "Time" article that this simple idea was being applied to paralyzed people--as well as brain-damaged to any extent--only in recent years.

I had seen the 60 Minute coverage about a young paralyzed woman and that about Christopher Reeve but hadn't realized the technique was so simple. (Though it doesn't bring patients back 100%.)

The bottom line--research any serious condition thoroughly or ask (pay, even) someone else to do it. Sometimes there's an answer out there. And sometimes at least a little hope.

pedin--"Carved in Sand . . ." written by a now 50-year-old woman sounds like a practical supplement to Dr. Diamond's advice for anyone concerned about memory loss--his/hers or a loved one's. I'd forgotten that the thyroid and other physical matters might be a cause.

dvera-- Duh. I couldn't tell who was ungrateful--you or your advisees. Nothing wrong with a psychiatrist or psychologist, well recommended--for any of us. Meantime, there are great uplift books we can all benefit from available from Louise Hays' & other websites. From people like Dr. Phil, Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, and a thousand others. And what's more interesting to read about than ourselves?

It was kind of you to want to help people, dvera. I've always thought I was lucky in my family. No screamers except for an occasional tantrum from my handsomest uncle. Not a sourpuss in the bunch. But after living in the South for most of my life, I realize we didn't do hugging--except before a long absence. I regret we didn't hug more, and that I didn't hug my children more. I believe my husband realizes his New England family was physically reserved too. Didn't someone say in this discussion that hugging raises the hemoglobin and does other good things?

But as I said much earlier about having a roommate, we humans can thrive quite well without those good things by loving and nurturing ourselves.

Happy Cinco de Mayo to All

Welcome, Queen Liz Love those funky duds.

Barbara65b.. Most people know I have an odd but very frank way of expressing myself..and when the subect of hugging comes up, and I usually comment with an "ugh".... that person who may be on the other end of an EMail, will invariably say "I'm gonna hug you anyway..and a big one to boot"...Even I know when I've been bettered.

Someone who was in a church that practised hugging once said that it took him awhile to realize that there are people who REALLY REALLY don't like hugs, and to respect their feelings! I hope I remember that. But I'm with my yoga teacher, who says that we need four hugs a day, and there's nothing wrong with getting them by hugging ourselves.

Answer to question. Maybe I spelt it wrong so you could not find it on the net. Phermones sp? are hormones which females emit which attract males. I can't remember if Males also have this hormonal scent too. I should brush up on this subject. Primitive biological function which ensures the continuity of the species. We are not that different to animals are we?

Carolyn

I think it's pheromes that you are thinking of--but I may be spelling it incorrectly, also. Sue

3) the entrainment of hormone cycles in couples (Persky, et al. 1977), and perhaps in homosexual men (Henderson, 1976) or in homosexual women (Sanders & Reinisch, 1990), may be explained either by mammalian male or by mammalian female pheromone production; [para 12]

Big article on Human Pheromones for those interested.

Thanks Ginger for that!

Carolyn

Carolyn Your welcome!!!

Trying to figure out how to type Éloïse (with all the unfamiliar accents) De Pelteau...I think I got most of them and am satisfied...Her input was well worth the effort of trying to find out how to do it..

I've never believed all that much pheromone activity is going on in humans, except at certain times or between certain people. There could be some sort of cell memory or unconscious preference that trumps the physical thing that rules in lower animals. I mean, how musch scent can be detected "across a crowded room" some evening when you see that favorite head shape or physiognomy and you know you're done for--at least for awhile?

But then I guess I'm always looking at the differences between us and the lower animals. (Though in a few cases we aren't as kind to mates and children as some lower animals.)

I think some experiment have been done, and those would be interesting. Maybe I'll add that to my 101 things to search for on the net.

I installed my new computer without a problem, sorry I have neglected you though.

Lately I am more aware of my brain, that sounds so trite doesn't it but what I wanted to say is that what I used to know about it was the very bare minimum. But now that we have discussed it is some detail, it becomes less a mystery and we know that there are still many areas of the human brain that are still a mystery, scientists can only guess at what goes on with lab animal experiments.

I laughed reading the later postings, my family too was not a hugging one, but kissing on the cheek is big here as well as in France, the Swiss kiss three times once on the left cheek, then on the right, and on the left again. When you are not used to that, it startles you at first, no hugging, just a peck on the cheek.

Thank you Dvera, the accents modify how you pronounce a word and I wouldn't recognize it if I heard it said without accents. Éloïse was my grandmother's name. You pronounce it A as in abc, then L, then O, then E as in ease, then Z. You don't pronounce the last letter usually in French. ALOEEZZ

We still don't have Dr. Diamond's answers, but it's not over yet.