Brain Injury Law Blog : Head Injury : Coma : Personal Injury : Las Vegas Nevada Lawyer & Attorney Tim Titolo

Free Video Lecture: Memory and the Brain

Taught by Jeanette Norden Vanderbilt University Ph.D., Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

It's almost impossible to accurately describe the power and importance of memory. Whether you're fondly reminiscing over an event from a childhood vacation, quickly memorizing a phone number or address, or learning a new skill on the job, memory is so interwoven into our everyday lives that we can sometimes take it for granted. So how does memory actually work?

Modern neuroscience has uncovered a wealth of new insights into the fascinating ways our brains create and harness the power of memory, so that understanding this process is no longer a mystery. The key to memory lies in the dynamic nature of the synapses in our brains—a feature known as synaptic plasticity. Far from being static structures, these synapses are able to be continually shaped and reshaped by everyday experiences.

In Memory and the Brain, you explore

• the different categories of memory;
• the areas of the brain involved in creating and shaping memories; and
• the ways that our synapses change based on experiences in the world.

Watch this free video lecture and delve into the fascinating science behind how your brain works to create and use memories.

Click here to watch the video.

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 Traumatic Brain Injury has significant and distinct psychiatric effects.  The following is a brief discussion of what those effects can be:

• Loss of consciousness - Can be either brief or protracted. On recovery of consciousness, patients develop confusion, agitation, disorientation and delirium.

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 Short Term Memory and Long Term Memory after Traumatic Brain Injury

If you or someone you know has suffered a traumatic brain injury, you may notice that they can remember things from a long time ago – like their birthday. You may also notice they do not remember what you just told them – like what to get at the supermarket. We all need to understand that traumatic brain injury often manifests with impairments to short term memory and not impairments to long term memory. Here is why.

“Memory” is your brain taking in, keeping, recalling, and using information. A brain injury can affect any of these areas of memory. A brain injury can also make it hard to learn and remember things.

Some people with brain injury have a hard time remembering past events such as a telephone message or conversation. It can also be hard to remember future events such as an appointment. People might forget things they need to do during the day. While everyone forgets some things sometimes, people with memory problems forget things more often. They may also forget specific types of information. Most times, long-time memories about family and childhood are not affected.

·       SHORT-TERM MEMORY

There's some variation in how people define short-term memory. I define it as the ability to remember something after 30 minutes. In a head injury, someone's immediate memory may be good, yet they may still have problems with short-term memory. Short term memory resides in a part of our brain that allows quick and immediate access. If you repeat the memory item enough you can move it that portion of your brain that stores information for long term memory. For instance, if you listen to a song long enough to memorize the words, you are on your way to storing it in long term memory. 

·       LONG-TERM MEMORY

Long-term memory is information that we recall after a day, two weeks, or ten years. For most head-injured people, their long-term memory tends to be good. Again using music, have you ever noticed how you remember the words to a song you listened to as a teenager when you suddenly hear it on the radio?

So it important, whether you are struggling with traumatic brain injury or are a loved one dealing with a spouse, friend, to understand the difference in remembering and using short term and long term memory. You can always read more about traumatic brain injury by visiting my Brain and Spine Injury Law Blog or Titolo Law Office website.

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Worried about whether your favorite desert will taste the same in years to come?  New research out of Milan, Italy reveals a possible link between flavor and abnormal eating behavior in patients with Alzheimer's Disease.  And words put to music assist those same patients memory of the words sung as opposed to spoken.  But not so for healthy adults.

Forget Flavor?

The Journal Cortex  published "Flavour processing in semantic dementia" by Katherine E. Piwnica-Worms, Rohani Omar, Julia C. Hailstone, and Jason D. Warren, and appears in Cortex, Volume 46, Issue 6 (June 2010).

The researchers tested patients' flavour processing using jelly beans: a convenient and widely available stimulus covering a broad spectrum of flavours. The abilities of patients to discriminate and identify flavours and to assess flavour combinations according to their appropriateness and pleasantness were compared with healthy people of the same age and cultural background. Patients were able to discriminate different flavours normally and to indicate whether they found certain combinations pleasant or not, but they had difficulty identifying individual flavours or assessing the appropriateness of particular flavour combinations (for example, vanilla and pickle).

These findings provide the first evidence that the meaning of flavours, like other things in the world, becomes affected in semantic dementia: this is a truly 'pan-modal' deficiency of knowledge. The research gives clues to the brain basis for the abnormal eating behaviours and the altered valuation of foods shown by many patients with dementia. More broadly, the results offer a perspective on how the brain organises and evaluates those commonplace flavours that enrich our daily lives.

So if you ever hear an elderly person announce, after trying frog legs, "tastes like chicken," consider these findings.

Remember Music

The National Institute on Aging supports Research from Boston University School of Medicine. That research shows that patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD) are better able to remember new verbal information when it is provided in the context of music even when compared to healthy, older adults. The findings, which currently appear on-line in Neuropsychologia, offer possible applications in treating and caring for patients with AD.

Watching Grandma kick it to her genre of music explains these findings, or the other way around. So in the end, the last things I may remember are the lyrics to some old Led Zeppelin or Jethro Tull songs.  "Whole Lotta...Aqualung!"

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TBI:
The Invisible Injury

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a blow or jolt to the head or a penetrating head
injury. The injury is caused by falls, motor vehicle crashes, assaults and other
incidents. Blasts are a leading cause of TBI for active duty military personnel in
war zones.

Any TBI—whether diagnosed as mild, moderate or severe—can temporarily or
permanently impair a person’s cognitive skills, interfere with emotional wellbeing
and diminish physical abilities.

Individuals with TBI may experience memory loss; concentration or attention
problems; slowed learning; and difficulty with planning, reasoning, or judgment.
Emotional and behavioral consequences include depression, anxiety,
impulsivity, aggression, and thoughts of suicide.

Physical challenges of TBI may include fatigue, headaches, problems with
balance or motor skills, sensory losses, seizures, and endocrine dysfunction.
TBI often leads to respiratory, circulatory, digestive, and neurological diseases,
including epilepsy, Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease.

Poor outcomes after TBI result from shortened length of stays in both inpatient
and outpatient medical settings; insurance coverage denials for rehabilitative
treatment; and inadequate funding for public services. Too often individuals with
TBI are prematurely discharged to untrained, unsupported family caregivers or
inappropriately placed in nursing homes, psychiatric institutions or correctional
facilities.

Maximal recovery and long-term health maintenance for people with brain injury
can only be achieved through a comprehensive, coordinated neurotrauma
disease management system providing for immediate treatment, medicallynecessary
rehabilitation, and supportive services delivered by appropriately
trained TBI specialists in the public and private sectors.
 

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