hi again all
i guess the old saying is true:
"if you don't use it, you lose it" !!
i had a hunch ...
janet
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At 94, he still is mentally quick and part of a brain study
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Copyright =A9 1997 Nando.net
Copyright =A9 1997 Scripps Howard
(Jan 16, 1997 01:24 a.m. EST) - On Dr. Leopold Hofstatter's desk is=20
the first model of a brain he ever made -- a clumsy plaster-of-paris=20
version of that enigmatic, three-pound mass.
He made it in 1923 when he was in medical school at the University of
Vienna. At that time, speculations that the human mind, our individual
essence, arose out of a glob of inter-cranial tissue, were considered
sacrilegious. Most people believed that the miracle of consciousness=20
was just that -- a miracle, a spirit breathed into the infant,=20
separate from its earthly encasement.
"But I had a hunch that the anatomy of the brain held the answers to=20
the personality," Hofstatter said. "All my life I have had these=20
hunches. They would awaken me at night and gnaw at me." He gives an=20
unmistakably European shrug, a there-it-is, what-is-a-man-to-do?=20
shrug. "So I studied neurology and psychiatry, and not law as my=20
grandfather would have wished."
Given his own lifelong, single-minded study of the brain, there's a=20
certain poetic justice in the fact that Leopold Hofstatter's own brain=20
is now a subject of great interest to a new generation of=20
neurologists.
"I am of interest because I am so old," he says wryly.
Because he is so old and so keen. Because, at 94, the words march
factory-file off his lips. Because he still performs on the piano at
churches and still does research at the Missouri Institute of Mental
Health, a research arm of the School of Medicine of the University of
Missouri.
Because he has just completed a fascinating proposal for studying how=20
the absence of a mother's nurturing in a child's earliest years may=20
impede the structural development of the brain in the area governing=20
psychosocial behavior.
For years, child psychologists have known that children denied the
stimulation of mothering in infancy and toddler years often had=20
behavioral difficulties later. But why, anatomically speaking, is this=20
so? Does the psychological problem have a physiological basis?
Hofstatter thinks that the deprivation of mothering results in an=20
actual measurable neural deficiency in brain area 11, the part of the=20
frontal lobe long known to mediate social behavior.
The question that Hofstatter embodies is every bit as intriguing as=20
the one the is currently postulating. Put in layman's terms, the=20
question is: Why does he have all his marbles when perhaps 50 percent=20
of the population over 85 is suffering from the marked loss of=20
cognitive function associated with disease?
To assume that genes alone would predetermine the brain's impairment=20
in such a huge portion of our elderly population is, in Hofstatter's=20
words, "a highly impoverished explanation."
Hofstatter is part of the control group in an Alzheimer's research=20
study begun in 1979 at the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at=20
Washington University. The object of the study, says its director, Dr.=20
Leonard Berg, is to compare what happens neurologically in healthy and=20
unhealthy aging, to measure the relative loss of neurons (the brain's=20
main type of cell) and of function via EEGs, imaging and memory and=20
reason testing.
The big hunch of this generation's neurologists, the one that has=20
great bearing for all of us, is that environmental stimuli play a much=20
greater role than previously suspected on the early development and=20
even on the healthy aging of the brain.
In other words, who we are and who we end up as may have as much to do=20
with private history as genetics.
Many neurologists theorize that brain development is not complete at=20
birth as previously thought; it is not a genetically preordained=20
configuration.
Genetic underpinnings provide the general guidelines for development.=20
But some of the myriad patterns of neuronal connections out of which=20
the individual intelligence emerges are formed later, depending on=20
sensory input, on individual exposures.
This premise that the brain's growth is subject to adaptation after=20
birth in response to stimuli is the basis for Hofstatter's supposition=20
that the brain of a child who is not nurtured by its mother will show=20
a measurable neuronal deficiency.
"Do you know that a kitten that has had its eye covered at birth does=20
not develop sight in that eye?" Hofstatter said by way of explaining=20
the seeds of his own hypothesis. "And when they looked at the blind=20
kitten's brain, what did they find? The part of the brain that governs=20
sight is found to be underdeveloped. Not enough external stimulation.=20
If this is true of sight, why not of some behaviors? I have a hunch."
If the brain is this flexible, this capable of selective response at
infancy, isn't it also possible that it might be stimulated to a=20
lesser degree to maintain itself healthily?
"As people age, they lose neurons, and that loss is reflected in
age-associated cognitive decline," explains Dr. George Grossberg,=20
chair of the Department of Psychiatry and director of the Division of=20
Geriatric Psychiatry at St. Louis University.
"But healthy brains lose far fewer neurons than we originally thought,=20
and, increasingly, there's evidence that what we do, or don't do, can=20
have a protective or destructive influence. Alcohol, for instance, is=20
a neuro-toxin. Nicotine, it turns out, is not. But in addition,=20
there's evidence that keeping the brain cells stimulated may actually=20
cause the neurons to construct. They get these little tentacles called=20
dendrites to ease connection between each other."
Hofstatter's life, studied clinically, is a paradigm for keeping your
marbles.
What's interesting is that his motive in life seems to have had as big=20
an impact on the quality of his latter years as what he ate (protein)=20
or the fact that he had his first cocktail only 25 years ago.
Born in 1902 of long-lived parents and grandparents, Hofstatter got=20
enough early intellectual stimulation to guarantee a habit of it and=20
maybe a neuronal craving for it. He got music and language instruction=20
as a matter of course in his Austrian-Jewish family.
"My mother insisted on my learning French so I could converse as a
gentleman with my grandfather. I picked up Croatian, Slovenian and=20
Serbian during our summers at the Black Sea."
At the University of Vienna, which he attended from 1921 to 1926 and=20
where he taught from 1926 to 1931, Freud was the rage, and the brain=20
was the great unexplored frontier. After an internship in surgery, he=20
went into neurology and psychiatry, but it was the brain's anatomy and=20
what role it might play in the mind's disorders that drew him.
"My instructor told me, 'All of your free time belongs to the=20
Institute. Live in the service of science and man.' "
Every weekend he hiked in the Alps.
He neither drank nor smoked.
In 1938, Hitler invaded Austria and Hofstatter exited, becoming a=20
research fellow in psychiatry and subsequently an assistant professor=20
in neuropsychiatry at Washington University. He was the superintendent=20
of St. Louis State Hospital from 1962 to '67 and again from 1970 to=20
'72.=20
Before the advent of psychotherapeutic drugs, he performed frontal
lobotomies on extremely disturbed patients. Others theorized that the
surgery worked because nerve fibers had been cut. But Hofstatter had a
hunch that chemical process had been disrupted.
"Psychosurgery has fallen into disrepute now," said Danny Wedding,=20
dean of the Missouri Institute of Health, where Hofstatter is=20
currently on staff. "But back then it was all they had to relieve a=20
patient's terror. Hofstatter was a pioneer in neurosurgery, but he was=20
never satisfied with it; he kept pushing to understand the mechanisms=20
through which the surgery worked."
And now it is his turn.
One thing his life demonstrates is that the quest for knowledge is not=20
only noble; it's healthful, stimulating dendrite growth the way hard=20
physical training builds muscles. We are designed in such a way that=20
our biology is rewarded for our deepest question-asking.
One day we may be able to quantify just how much the gnaw of his=20
hunches contributed to his ongoing clarity. Meanwhile, Dr.=20
Hofstatter's brain will be autopsied after his death by doctors in the=20
Alzheimer's research project to unravel more of the mystery of the=20
mind.
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