Brain Damage
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The scientists have discovered that some terrible illnesses such as Alzheimer's disorder are much worse than it was believed. Besides the capacity of erasing the memories, it seems that some of these illnesses have the capacity of creating new and false memories as well. These findings might prove to be beneficial for the people who suffer from these illnesses.

It seems that in their case a certain portion of the brain, called perirhinal cortex is affected. The perirhinal cortex is located in the middle of the brain, and it has the main task of forming memories. This part of the brain processes the information received, and it uses the information in order to turn it into a picture of an object. Lisa Saksida, who is a psychologist at the University of Cambridge in England, said that when one suffers from Alzheimer's disease, this portion of the brain will be the first one affected. Because of that, the person who suffers from the disease can no longer form these pictures of the objects in the brain, using very complex processes. Instead of using these complex processes, the brain will use very simple processes which in most of the cases are not as reliable. Because of that, the brain will try to make certain connections between memories. As it can not remember things very well, it will create false memories in order to make the connections.

The researchers were able to find this information buy using a computer simulation. That computer simulation which was tested on the animals proved that the ones who had their perihinal cortex affected by the disease would see the novel objects as being familiar. Saksida said that the discovery was surprising, and that they wanted to see if this can be tested. Her colleagues from U.K., U.S. and Canada created a series of experiments in which they used both regular rats and lab rats as well, the lab rats suffering from brain damage. They placed an object near the mice; a very common objects, which can be seen quite often, such as a hose from the garden and so on. After a certain period of time, they removed the object from the mice and after a period of time they released them. The mice could then encounter either the old object or a new but similar object. It was observed that the regular rats which did not suffer from brain damage were interested in exploring new things, and analyzing the new objects, whereas the laboratory rats did not spend too much time exploring the new items.

The scientists believe that the reason for that is the fact that the mice that had their brains affected by the disease saw the new objects as being old; they mistook them for the ones which they had in their cages. They said that if these mice would have forgotten about the objects, then they would have behaved just like the regular mice, and they would explore those, even if the objects where old. They said that this would happen in the case of a human who suffers from amnesia of from Alzheimer's disease. However based on their recent discoveries they have reasons to believe that a person who suffers from these illnesses might consider new things to be familiar as well. They decided to repeat the experiment once more. The second time they did the experiment, when they kept the mice in the cages after they saw the objects, they covered a blanket on the cage in order to keep them in the dark. Initially they believed that the reason why the mice got "bored" with the new objects was because they might have seen a shape in the environment which might have been similar to the one of the object.

They proved to be right, as the brain damaged mice performed just like the other ones when they saw the new objects; they explored them and they got interested in them. Because of this the researchers have reached to the conclusion that the brain simply fills in the dots when it is affected by a certain condition. It sees something familiar and it makes the association with a certain old object, even if they two could not be more different. It seems that everything is related to the visual stimulation, which involves a very complex process. The process of understanding the images seen takes place in the perirhinal cortex, which is the one affected in the case of these conditions. When it is affected, it tries to make up for the missing parts, and thus it combines the new images with the old ones. We might see a car for example and mistake it for a car we have seen numerous years before, and so on. It is unknown if the same thing would happen in the case of humans as well, because they did not test the experiment on humans. Sakida hopes that she will be able to do that in the future, but that might not be so easy to achieve.

Sakida said that it has been discovered that the people who suffer from amnesia or Alzheimer's disease can remember things better if they stay in a dark room for a certain period of time. She believes that this happens because the brain can not use certain visual information in order to make the connections, and when it has to face the light, it has to use what he sees without relying on the things he recently saw. She said that the disease from which the mice suffered was very rare in the case of humans, and that we should not be alarmed by it. However, she said that the brain damage is common in the case of humans, only from various reasons. In the meantime there are several things you can do in order to keep your mind as sharp as possible, such as exercising, relaxing, eat fish, drinking coffee, sleeping well at night, and so on.