Hockenbury Discovering Psychology 5th txtbk

The Search for the Biological Basis of Memory269outside and around neurons. The plaques interfere with the ability of neurons tocommunicate, damaging the neurons to the point that they die. The tangles aretwisted fibers that build up inside the neuron and interrupt the flow of nourishmentto the neuron, ultimately causing the neuron to die. Although most older peopledevelop some plaques and tangles in their brains, the brains of AD patients havethem to a much greater extent (Petersen, 2002). In the Focus on Neuroscience, youcan vividly see the progressive loss of neurons that is the root cause of Alzheimer’sdisease.In the early stages of AD, the symptoms of memory impairment are often mild,such as forgetting the names of familiar people, forgetting the location of familiarplaces, or forgetting to do things. But as the disease progresses, memory loss andconfusion become more pervasive. The person becomes unable to remember whatmonth it is or the names of family members. Frustrated and disoriented by theinability to retrieve even simple information, the person can become agitated andmoody. In the last stage of AD, internal brain damage has become widespread. Theperson no longer recognizes loved ones and is unable to communicate in anymeaningful way. All sense of self and identity has vanished. At the closing stages,the person becomes completely incapacitated. Ultimately, Alzheimer's disease isfatal (Alzheimer’s Association, 2009).Some 10 million Americans provide unpaid care for a person with Alzheimer’s diseaseor other dementia. These unpaid caregivers are primarily family members butalso include friends and neighbors. In 2008, these caregivers provided 8.5 billionhours of unpaid care (Alzheimer’s Association, 2009). Not only is there afinancial toll, but families and caregivers struggle with great physical and emotionalstress as they try to cope with the mental and physical changes occurring in theirloved one. The average number of hours of unpaid care provided for a relative orfriend with Alzheimer’s increases as the person’s condition worsens.Numerous resources are available to help support families and other caregivers,such as the Alzheimer’s Disease Education & Referral Center (www.alzheimers.org)and the Alzheimer’s Association (www.alz.org).>> Closing ThoughtsHuman memory is at once both perfectly ordinary and quite extraordinary. Withnext to no mental effort, you form and recall countless memories as you go throughdaily life. Psychologists have made enormous progress in explaining how thosememories are encoded, stored, retrieved, and forgotten.Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of human memory is its fallibility. Memory issurprisingly susceptible to errors and distortions. Under some conditions, completelyfalse memories can be experienced, such as Elizabeth Loftus’s memory ofdiscovering her mother’s body in the swimming pool. Such false memories can beso subjectively compelling that they feel like authentic memories, yet confidence ina memory is not proof of the memory’s truth.Many mysteries of human memory remain, including exactly how memories arestored in and retrieved from the brain. Nevertheless, reliable ways of improvingmemory in everyday life have been discovered. In the Enhancing Well-Being withPsychology feature, we provide several suggestions to enhance your memory fornew information.The Nun Study of Aging and Alzheimer'sDisease Since 1986 David Snowdon (2002,2003) has been studying 678 elderly RomanCatholic nuns. From a scientific perspective,the nuns are an ideal group tostudy because their lifestyles and environmentare so similar. Although the study isongoing, several findings have alreadyemerged (see Riley & others, 2005; Tyas &others, 2007a, 2007b).For example, the outward signs ofAlzheimer's disease (AD) and the degreeof brain damage evident at death are notperfectly correlated. Although some nunshad clear brain evidence of AD, they didnot display observable cognitive and behaviordeclines prior to their deaths. Othernuns had only mild brain evidence of ADbut showed severe cognitive and behavioraldeclines.Interestingly, the sisters who displayedbetter language abilities when they wereyoung women were less likely to displayAD symptoms. This held true regardless ofhow much brain damage was evident atthe time of their death (Iacono & others,2009). As researcher Diego Iacono (2009)commented, "It's the first time that we'reshown that a complex cognitive activity,like language ability, is connected with aneurodegenerative disease."