Probing the Mind for a Cure

--Bob Moore: Loved a woman; relished ice cream

and Mozart; loathed golf; liked philosophy

--had strong faith

--became a minister

--lost the capacity to understand any of this in the

last 20 years of his life

--have identified a gene that triggers Alzheimers

--had been a supportive parent (109)

--autopsy showed that brain had shrunk by half

--many of cells had died

--hippocampus, which stores new memories, was

much affected

-clumps of protein --plaques--form outside nerve cells

-connections between cells destroyed

-ability to make rational decisions disrupted

-frame of reference disappears

-Bob became increasingly angry and then, unusual with

him, extraordinarily aggressive

-wife found him impossible to handle

-put in psychiatric ward

--on page 115 note causal or mechanical explanation

-unified theory of dementia--misfolded proteins

-page 116: twin studies show strong genetic component

-but there are individual differences--cognitive reserve--

use your brain more and less likelihood of the disease

--Bob had expressed desire not to live if he got to the point

where he'd lost his dignity

-children and wife there when he dies: "You just realize

what a big break life and death is" Here the ego or soul

theory of personal identity kicks in

--family relieved when he died

--page 120: "Brain 05-274 would have a new job now.

It would join 900 others stacked on shelves in the lab,

waiting to help scientists vanquish their killers".