I just was watching a program on the Discovery Health Channel called, "The Plastic Fantastic Brain". I was intrigued by some of the stories of people who have had traumatic injuries or surguries to the brain (such as having HALF of one's brain removed due to disease). Afterwards, more primitive portions of the brain have taken over the functions of the "missing" or malfunctioning parts. I think, "How can this be applied to Altzheimer's research?". Why , I wonder, don't other parts of the brain (or how can other parts of the brain be trained or stimulated ) to take over the processes of the parts of the brain that is dying in the Alzheimer's patient? I wonder if this has been researched. Don't mind me, I'm just a person with a high school degree and an inquiring mind. Any comments? Did anyone see this program?
I didn't see the pgm, but my understanding is that whereas a brain injury may be compensated in some way by other parts of a healthy brain, AD is caused by plaque that causes problems with neuro transmissions, basically throughout the brain.
Yup. That's it. The transmitters and connections die. The brain can't tell the body what to do anymore. Each part of the brain that controls a particular function dies.