Perfect

MovieNerd - apologies for not going through quotes, hastily whooshing by so just back-referencing to Alzheimers: interesting, I didn't think of making some analogy, so maybe I make one up that is not quite correct, but would see it as a removal of many of the nodes (neurons) and connections (synapses) or at least corrupting the latter.
Physiologically A. is seen as causing brain tissue loss, so it physically reduces the number of neurons.
So if one took a vast enough artificial neural network, and started erasing at random a bunch of connections that were "trained" to have certain weights based on presented information, then could achieve something similar. Of course this would need an intelligent enough network to be similar to what we have in our wetware.
Of course the whole other matter is what causes it - in Kubrick's 2001 the chap removes a bunch of modules from HAL and it gradually decays. Having had cases of A. in the family, I always found that sequences eerily similar (of course compressed to a few seconds) to how this nasty thing develops and affects the higher brain functions.

lehelvandor wrote:MovieNerd - apologies for not going through quotes, hastily whooshing by so just back-referencing to Alzheimers: interesting, I didn't think of making some analogy, so maybe I make one up that is not quite correct, but would see it as a removal of many of the nodes (neurons) and connections (synapses) or at least corrupting the latter.
Physiologically A. is seen as causing brain tissue loss, so it physically reduces the number of neurons.
So if one took a vast enough artificial neural network, and started erasing at random a bunch of connections that were "trained" to have certain weights based on presented information, then could achieve something similar. Of course this would need an intelligent enough network to be similar to what we have in our wetware.
Of course the whole other matter is what causes it - in Kubrick's 2001 the chap removes a bunch of modules from HAL and it gradually decays. Having had cases of A. in the family, I always found that sequences eerily similar (of course compressed to a few seconds) to how this nasty thing develops and affects the higher brain functions.

My interest in Alzheimer's came from helping to care for my greant aunt Rosa, my dad's aunt on his dad's side, who suffered with the disease for a little over 20 years and just passed away last month. The decay to her brain tissue and the loss of her identity and dignity were disheartening.

No apologies needed mate. As always I find your posts informative.

Thanks, and sorry to hear about it - had some cases in my family, and makes me wonder how my chances look like genetically speaking :O It admittedly side-steps the thread, but would dare to state my opinion that such physiological changes that fundamentally affect the *person* that we once knew can take a bigger toll on everyone around him/her than other changes that 'only' affect things outside the brain. As you say, I found that loss of identity the most difficult to deal with.

lehelvandor wrote:Thanks, and sorry to hear about it - had some cases in my family, and makes me wonder how my chances look like genetically speaking :O It admittedly side-steps the thread, but would dare to state my opinion that such physiological changes that fundamentally affect the *person* that we once knew can take a bigger toll on everyone around him/her than other changes that 'only' affect things outside the brain. As you say, I found that loss of identity the most difficult to deal with.

It is a disease where you wonder who's suffering more--the victim or the victim's friends and family. It certainly has some sociological ramifications which need exploring.

Indeed, especially as, for example in UK and I guess in many other countries, the projections on case numbers incl. early onset of it are quite alarming - it is becoming a gigantic healthcare issue, because there is very special care needed, and then there is all the help that the people around the patient need.
And we know approximately zero on what causes it and why its statistics have skyrocketed in the last couple of decades...

lehelvandor wrote:Indeed, especially as, for example in UK and I guess in many other countries, the projections on case numbers incl. early onset of it are quite alarming - it is becoming a gigantic healthcare issue, because there is very special care needed, and then there is all the help that the people around the patient need.
And we know approximately zero on what causes it and why its statistics have skyrocketed in the last couple of decades...

Are we still at absolute zero at understanding the disease? I haven't been keeping up, but I had hoped we'd learned at least something.

Well, as far as I know, close-to-zero understanding of what triggers it - in small percentage it is something genetic, but that doesn't apply it seems to the 90+ percent of other cases that "just" happen.
I wasn't tracking it very closely recently, but in terms of slowing it down, there have been some breakthroughs (but the mechanism is not understood) - some overdosing of certain B-vitamins seems to "somehow" protect the braincells and slows down the advancing of the disease, but the articles I saw were warning that no long term study was done on possible side-effects of those doses of those particular B vitamins (I can't recall which ones were and in what mixture).
The most recent thing I saw was that apparently just 30mins a day of walking, i.e. mild physical exercise, seems to actually counter-act the advancing of the disease, beyond just the motor control parts of the brain. So again not quite understood how it has a more overall effect. I just found an article on it, which seems better than a few months ago the news coverage (that usually gets annoying) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 102746.htm

Whilst these are very interesting, gosh, I just wish they discovered the actual trigger cause of it - quite a few years ago they were even suspecting particular metals like aluminium getting into our diet in trace quantities due to packaging and aluminium used in kitchens, but that didn't seem conclusive.
Clearly there has to be some kind of an environmental factor, considering the rapid increase in cases recently.

Ah good, this is what we need - advertising spam in every single thread

lehelvandor wrote:Well, as far as I know, close-to-zero understanding of what triggers it - in small percentage it is something genetic, but that doesn't apply it seems to the 90+ percent of other cases that "just" happen.
I wasn't tracking it very closely recently, but in terms of slowing it down, there have been some breakthroughs (but the mechanism is not understood) - some overdosing of certain B-vitamins seems to "somehow" protect the braincells and slows down the advancing of the disease, but the articles I saw were warning that no long term study was done on possible side-effects of those doses of those particular B vitamins (I can't recall which ones were and in what mixture).
The most recent thing I saw was that apparently just 30mins a day of walking, i.e. mild physical exercise, seems to actually counter-act the advancing of the disease, beyond just the motor control parts of the brain. So again not quite understood how it has a more overall effect. I just found an article on it, which seems better than a few months ago the news coverage (that usually gets annoying) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 102746.htm

Whilst these are very interesting, gosh, I just wish they discovered the actual trigger cause of it - quite a few years ago they were even suspecting particular metals like aluminium getting into our diet in trace quantities due to packaging and aluminium used in kitchens, but that didn't seem conclusive.
Clearly there has to be some kind of an environmental factor, considering the rapid increase in cases recently.

One of the issues, I think, in treating the disease, lies in the fact that two people with the disease suffer differently, at least differently enough to have a problem addressing it.