Portraits of Alzheimer's disease as portrayed in the 2014 documentary Alive Inside. Final project for Understanding the Brain: The Neurobiology in Everyday Life, spring 2015.

1. Portraits of Alzheimer’s disease as
portrayed in the 2014 documentary

2. Alzheimer’s disease (AD): an overview
AD is a neurodegenerative disease
whose effects become increasingly
devastating with time. It begins with
plaques and tangles occurring in the
hippocampus and gradually spreads
to the rest of the brain. This growing
atrophy of the brain, caused by loss of
neurons and synapses in the cerebral
cortex, results in heartbreaking
handicaps in those affected.

3. Because the destruction begins within the
hippocampus, the initial noticeable symptom of AD is
often short-term memory loss. Without a properly
functioning hippocampus, the individual is unable to
create new declarative/explicit memories, including
both semantic (general, factual knowledge about the
world) & episodic (specific personal, autobiographical
details) memories. They will then have more and
more trouble recalling important memories that make
up the fabric of their life, identity, and relationships.

4. Ultimately, the degeneration will encroach on the other areas
of the brain, including: the temporal lobe, which houses the
hippocampus and handles not only memory but processes
sensory input, language, and emotion association; the
parietal lobe, which regulates tasks concerning spatial
awareness, language, and even personality; the frontal lobe,
which controls motivation and handles emotional memories to
prompt socially-acceptable behaviors; adverse effects on the
occipital lobe will cause lack of recognition when seeing loved
ones and potentially hallucinations. The image on this slide is
of a severely “shrunken” brain, damaged by AD, as shown by
Prof. Mason.

5. According to the documentary, music has the ability
to activate many more parts of the brain than any
other stimulus. The auditory cortex, which responds
to music and musical memories and is located in the
temporal lobes, seems not to be as adversely
affected as other parts of the brain. Music can also
serve as a gateway to access implicit (physical,
mechanical) memory and emotional memory, the last
functions to be affected in AD.

6. Because AD currently has no cure, many caregivers
and loved ones of those affected struggle to cope with
patients’ decline in both memory recall and daily
functioning for self-care. Alive Inside suggests that
musical therapy as a stimulation-oriented treatment
might be an effective intervention to alleviate the
psychosocial pains caused by AD by helping patients
recover memories, rebuild relationships, and
reconstruct their sense of identity.

7. What if we were born with the basic
rhythms of music the moment we began
to exist as a living organism, with a
heartbeat sung together by the chorus of
all our cells, and that remained forever
accessible to us?

8. What if music were...

9. Music could very well be
the key to the brain, and
the

10. As an absolute novice in the world of neurobiology and science in general,
taking this course on “The Neurobiology of Everyday Life” made the
intimidating subject of the human brain and all of the human body’s little-
but-powerful parts a little more approachable, more digestable, and
ultimately, more human. We are an incredible network of neurons and
synapses--a work of nature that may have turned highly scientific with
centuries of diligent study, but--the human creature always have been and
forever will be residing in the natural cycle of growth and degeneration.
Whether we are living through our lifetime swimmingly or happen upon
hiccups in our body and brain, we are all still human. A disability might
incapacitate a part of who we are in terms of our everyday routine, but it
should not stop us and our loved ones from continuing as best as we can to
be ourselves. This course alerted me to the incredibly social nature of
science--how so many people come together to learn, to share, to offer up
to each other all different kinds of support in order to carry onward in life,
together.

11. Sources
Alive Inside, documentary available on Netflix
Professor Mason’s brain lab video #14
Retrogenese, animated video on Alzheimer’s
Wikipedia entries on AD & related linked topics