Cool video

[coachdebra]

Interesting discussion - thought you might enjoy this:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03 ... n-the-womb

[Len911]

Yes very interesting Deb!!

I wonder how that research correlates with Noam Chomsky's "The Poverty of the Stimulus" theory,

"Wired for Language?
"[H]ow is it that children . . . routinely succeed in learning their mother tongues? The input is patchy and defective: parental speech does not seem to provide a very satisfactory, neat and tidy model from which children could easily derive the underlying rules. . . .

"Because of this apparent poverty of the stimulus--the fact that linguistic knowledge seems undetermined by the input available for learning--many linguists have claimed in recent years that some knowledge of language must be 'wired in.' We must, the argument goes, be born with a theory of language. This hypothesized genetic endowment provides children with prior information about how languages are organized, so that, once exposed to linguistic input, they can immediately start fitting the details of their particular mother tongue into a ready-made framework, rather than cracking the code from scratch without guidance."
(Michael Swan, Grammar. Oxford Univ. Press, 2005)"

I watched a video yesterday on the genome of cancer. I got the impression that cancer is more of a real time theory of evolution, and that if something mutates and survives over the long haul it becomes our concept of evolution. Every gene contributes it's part in the recipe, and if everything is "working correctly" in the "right" balance, we are normal. If a gene or several genes contribute none or the wrong amount of their chemical, things are changed and may or may not progress into full blown "cancer". It's sobering to discover that most if not everyone has stray mutations and if the controls are working properly, it doesn't progress into something life threatening.

I don't know what the correct term is, but cancer sort of defines the way any cells develop from any deviance from normal. It doesn't seem correct to call autism or every disease cancer, but the "wiring" of the brain comes from the process. And wiring for language seems plausible.

I'm thinking Robert Sapolsky had a lecture on how the brain can sometimes rewire itself for certain processes. I'm not sure how or if it's possible or investigated in the case of autism in particular.

[Len911]

Rewiring of the brain is also called neuroplasticity.

I'm not sure how autism might be affected, because it mostly is illustrated with memory, people with strokes
for example who have many memory cells but a few cells in the connections of those cells are destroyed and "rewire" around and complete the connection once again. Though I think the success depends on how many "connections" there are originally.

If cells were never programed or wired in the first place, I don't know how you could rewire or program in a person with autism. You would have to overcome the poverty of the stimulus, making the task much more complex. Then I think you begin to enter areas of ethics. Is it necessary or cruel to impose our ideas of normalcy onto autistics whom are different, or accept the differences and focus on their normal for them to live a fulfilled and happy life? It seems similar to the ethics of gender assignment or reassignment??

[coachdebra]

There is growing evidence that early intervention can hugely benefit autistic children, including in the area of speech. And as far as the ethics of intervention, I think functionality is a critical evolutionary measure. And the brain is really such a mystery still. My father with advanced alzheimers and parkinson's can get amazing tone from his violin. But he struggles to vocalize a clear sentence.

[davehaddock]

Hey everybody.

Thought you might find this interesting. Not really in reference to the brain, but an interesting short little doc (6 min) about the cellist Jami Sieber playing music amongst elephants.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duSgIcEqUzQ

I have mixed feelings about humans interfering with the lives of creatures, but these beasts are pretty cool.

Music is a bridge.

David

http://davehaddock.bandcamp.com/

[Len911]

Well anyhow it does give insight into the cellist's imagination and interpretation if nothing else, and that's part of the brain. I can't help but to wonder what would happen if someone arrived with a bag of freshly roasted peanuts,lol!


I'm sure early intervention with autistic children could be beneficial, just not as efficient as the normal child who is predisposed or wired for language. I'm definitely not an expert on autism. My brief career training greyhounds was enough to discover that greyhounds have the innate sense of chase, hopefully the rabbit and not other dogs as many farms do when they are put in runs and run up and down the fence with the other pack on the other side of the fence. That is actually counter productive at the racetrack, you don't want your dog running with the pack, but chasing the rabbit, however, that is what is actually taught inadvertently on the large farms.

I don't know what the cusp is of brain science, for a few years now I think they've pretty near solved most of how the brain works, the larger problems are how to fix them without damage. That I'm sure is going to be the hardest part.

My grandma supposedly has alzheimer's. She'll be 95 in about a week. I say supposedly, because from when she was first 'diagnosed', she's never progressed, and if you know her, she plays "dumb" or forgetful about certain things at certain times. She's not at all like others in the memory ward of the nursing home, she doesn't miss a thing. In fact when she lived at home, you couldn't make a doctors or hair appointment too long in advance or let her know, because she would ask everyday about it and make conversation for hours on end,lol!

I suppose the area of the brain affected most by the memory loss and how many connections outside of the most affected areas of the brain might determine what skills are maintained and lost. I would think playing the violin would use a lot of areas of the brain, that could be why it is so difficult for a beginner?? Motor, aural, processing and memory?

I've mentioned Robert Sapolsky before, he has many lectures on brain function at Stanford, mainly about how stress affects the chemistry and changes in the brain and has touched on alzheimers though not specifically focused on it, but it all ties in together.

The things I find most fascinating about all these lectures, besides curiosity, is I can better understand what is going on and understand not only other people but myself included, more insight.

[Len911]

As a personal note, it's been about a year since last March that I was prescribed Zoloft. Wow, I didn't know I had had so much anxiety in my life. I watched several Sapolsky lectures on youtube, Depression is a disease and more, but he described how stress in the form of anxiety and depression affected the body. I don't remember the exact sequence, but the gland over the kidney's secrete glucosteroids that trigger other reactions in the body, the liver releases more sugar, or was it triglycerides? the pancreas secretes more insulin, ... all these chemicals triggering other chain reactions, and your body craves carbohydrates, yada yada, bringing it full circle.
Okay, I have diabetes and tricoglycerides, maybe not the entire explanation.
This March I went to the doctor, and he was concerned with my weight. What? I thought losing weight was good, especially because of my diabetes. He was concerned because I had lost a lot of weight (I knew I probably lost a few pounds) without trying or dieting, and I've had a lot of testing and MRI's to see if I have cancer! Ok, so far the results are negative, I still have to do a colorectal exam, ugh! I asked him about the zoloft, and he said maybe but he still had to check.

Looking back, yeah I have to say that I didn't crave certain junk food like I used to, so maybe there is credence to the science of stress and how it changes the physiology in the body, it still doesn't explain why my sister said she had to change from zoloft, because it made her fat!? Go figure,lol!

[coachdebra]

My Dad's issues didn't start with memory loss so much as difficulty in perception. He would be looking for a pen. A pen would be sitting next to a cordless phone handset. He'd pick up the handset and try to write with it. Only when it didn't make a mark on the page would he realize its not a pen. Those were the early stages.

Now, he often doesn't recognize his home. He wants to know how much this hotel is costing him. He always recognizes my Mom and me, but doesn't always know my name. He rarely knows what year it is anymore. And he often misinterprets what he hears on tv as something that is actually happening in the room. Sometimes he forgets how to hold a fork.

But he can pick up the violin, hear my sister playing the piano and improvise a melody that works with her chords. Go figure.

With regard to your weight loss, Len - it is a concern when you lose weight without trying (and we women hate you for it!!!). It can be a sign of cancer, but it can also be a sign of ulcers, depression, and other things.

And yes - the gland is the adrenal gland, and cortisol is the master hormone that sets off the chain reaction. We're a multitude of complex systems that interrelate.

[Len911]

I don't know how many times I have picked up the cordless phone and tried to change the channel with it.

Ah yes, my grandma used to occasionally ask my mom how she was suppose to eat her supper.

My folks are getting up in age also, there are a few hints of dementia also, like forgetting to turn the burner off on the stove after removing the pan, just yesterday, can't find a spice that is right in the front of the other spices... Not to mention when one of them doesn't have their hearing aids in. That makes for interesting conversations.

[davehaddock]

Just don't make a call and ask the person who answers to change the channel on the TV.

Yuk yuk.