Jason Williams
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Posts by Jason Williams
Treating Alzheimer’s – A walk in the park?
Jan 5th
Anecdotally it seems obvious that people who stay physically active face old age with greater resilience than their more sedentary peers. A new study, analyzing over a decade’s worth of data might be just the motivation to get couch potatoes moving.
Cyrus Raji et.al. from the University of Pittsburgh have shown that loss in brain volume (a symptom of old age) is decreased in those who are more physically active. A cohort of 299 adults (mean age of 78 years) were analyzed over the course of 13 years. After correcting for various factors, the Pittsburgh group concluded that walking around 72 More >
Alzheimer’s and Amyloids
Nov 15th
The word “factor” is often seen used in manuscripts of molecular biology and biochemistry as a fancy way of saying unknown. Before the inner workings of complex genetic of molecular pathways are understood, there are often clues that suggest the presence and operation of certain unknown and unnamed components which might be labeled factor for lack of a better term (e.g. transcription factor, or translation initiation factor). Later these factors may become well described; sometimes the term factor is dropped or in some cases, especially where it was applied to a single instance of what is a large family of More >
Babies, Robots, and Cognition
Oct 19th
Surely one of the most amazing transformations in nature is the gradual transitioning of a helpless, demanding, and totally-dependent baby into a thoughtful and intelligent adult who can use language, produce art, and create society. The transition is slow, and reversions are known to occur, but for all our knowledge, the manner in which the brain organizes itself to great accomplishment is still mystery. However, much can be learned from studies of the type recently published by Andrew Meltzoff, co-director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Learning and Brain Sciences, and Rajesh Rao.
Understanding infant development is a crucial component More >
Cell phone conversations confirmed as annoying/distracting
Sep 24th
Most everyone has had the pleasure of being stuck in close quarters with a person who feels compelled to speak as loudly as possible into their cell phone. Annoying cell phone conversations are such a popular pet-peeve that it’s not uncommon to have “quiet cars” on trains, or signs banning cell phones in certain public locations. It’s quite likely that you have been on a train or bus where two people were talking to each other, and yet you didn’t have the same reaction you had to a person chatting into his phone. Excepting libraries, people chatting with each other More >
Adjusting your moral compass
Apr 6th
It can be kind of frightening to think about it, but there really is such a thing as mind control.
Now, we are not talking Hypnotoad or Professor-X style mind control (not yet at least) but a simple experiment that demonstrates how mind and brain interact and can be manipulated.
In the study conducted by Rebecca Saxe of MIT (http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/03/11/0914826107.full.pdf+html)
used a technique call transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt a region of the brain known as the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ). As every child knows, one of the best ways to figure out how something works is to take it apart and More >
Music, Education, Neuroscience
Feb 22nd
At the recent annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the topics of music-education and neuroscience were highlighted by Nina Kraus, Professor of Neurobiology, Physiology and Communication Sciences at Northwestern University. In a study to be published in the April edition of Nature Neuroscience, his group demonstrated that children with some musical training were better able to distinguish sounds (in this case tonal variants of mandarin Chinese words) then their amusical peers. Specifically this study looked at distinguishing these sounds from a complicated sound background.
While this is a very focused study, it is clear from a More >
Childhood Indications of Schizophrenia
Jan 25th
A recent 30 Year longitudinal study of individuals from New Zealand has revealed early indications of schizophrenia development later in life. Unlike many mental disorders, schizophrenia usually strikes much later in life (usually in mid to late adolescence) and so parents and patients alike may be unaware that there is a potential problem. In many places adequate access to proper mental-healthcare is lacking, so even when a diagnosis is possible, treatment may not be.
Obviously, the earlier individuals have access to information about their health, the longer they have to make appropriate choices. When it comes to mental-health, a properly responsive More >
Remembering Kim Peek
Dec 28th
Kim Peek (November 11, 1951 – December 19, 2009) was an inconceivably gifted savant. In today’s terms we might describe him as a living version of Google, but far better. He could of course, give you driving directions to any place in the country, and open the entire course of human history with names, dates, facts and figures to astonishing accuracy, but he was more than this, he was a person. He was a person doing things that no one would think a person could do, and that is the signature of savantism.
It is important to remember that savantism is More >
Autism and Marijuana
Nov 30th
This morning, “Good Morning America,” a popular morning news program in the U.S. told the story of a mother with an autistic child who was “treating” him with marijuana. I use quotation marks, and will make other cautionary notes here, because this blog is not meant to represent any forum of medical advice.
At the time of writing this, the GMA website, which usually posts follow-ups, has nothing on their site, which I found a little strange. The mother also appeared not with another member of her family, but a lawyer, who was also a family friend. I wondered how these More >
SNP Snoop: BDNF and driving ability; failed road test?
Nov 2nd
Could an alternative version of your brain-derived neurotropic factor be an excuse for your failed road test?
According to research published in the Journal, Cerebral Cortex, by Stephanie McHughen et.al., a key SNP in BDNF (valine 66 mutated to methionine) impacts learning and memory functions, cognitive tools which happen to be crucial for operating an automobile.
During one of the described experiments, subjects were seated at a computer, with attached steering wheel as they had to keep the virtual car on a black line in the center of the screen. Subjects got to learn the driving circuit by following the car on 15, More >
