Find any type of treatment, much less a cure has not been easy. But some neurologists now see great potential in the techniques of manipulation of the neuroplasticity "of the brain", their propensity to reorganize its neuronal structure in response to stimuli and behavior.
This year, the Department of Defense awarded a grant of 2 million dollars to brain plasticity Inc. to study the effectiveness of the science software running in restoring memory and the care of victims of traumatic brain injury or science T.B.I. directors, based in San Francisco, is one of several companies, including Nintendo and luminosity, they sell software of brain health products to consumers.
Posit science software is effective, could become one of the first medical applications of an approach to improvement of brain that continues to be controversial. The software could potentially help patients T.B.I. and also those that have been identified have autism, the disease of Parkinson, schizophrenia and other psychiatric and neurological diseases.
"This is the beginning of a revolution," said Michael Merzenich, co-founder and Chief Scientist of the science postulate; the President of the brain plasticity; and a famous neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco, pioneered the idea of neural plasticity.
Posit science software, sold commercially under the name of vision and brain Fitness program, should be to strengthen memory, attention, skills and visual spatial skills in adults for revocation. The same studies have improved in these areas, but critics such as Dr p. Murali Doraiswamy, a psychiatrist at Duke University, are not convinced that these achievements translate into benefits long term that can be generalized to daily challenges and remember where it is parked the car.
"There is a large gap between claims and evidence," said Dr. Doraiswamy, who said he doubted whether short-term improvements in memory could last more than test period of studies more than three months.
"If" they were a medicine, it said the software, "which would have been pulled from the market."
If the software PC-game-like can be used to improve mental acuity in general in those with brain damage from trauma to the head is an even bigger question.
"It is theoretically sensible," said Gary Abrams, director of the Neurorehabilitation at U.C.S.F. and head of support at the San Francisco VA Medical Center clinic T.B.I.. "But it will really work to help veterans"? I can not talk with "."
The idea of neuroplasticity dates back to the early 1980s, when the scientific wisdom argued that once people reached adulthood, their brains were cabled and would remain so for life. Dr. Merzenich does not believe to be true and eventually his research showed that the brain of primates continued change at maturity.
In the mid-2000s, Dr. Merzenich and colleagues at the University had brought much of the neuroscience field around the idea that the change of brain, plasticity, was the rule and not the exception.
Dr. Merzenich core claim is that brain structure always is changing, based on what they do and what they pay attention to. Making specific brain exercises that focus and improve care, he says, can adjust the structure of his brain. It is well known that this happens when we learn a new skill, such as dancing. The question is, can use the same processes to correct brain damage?
The brain does not work, or what Dr. Merzenich calls the "noisy" brain is like a radio that, for any number of reasons, is badly adjusted to its destination station. The objective of its software, says, is to clarify a strong signal repeatedly practicing simple tasks, such as repeated Visual pattern recognition.
The software available on the market, which is slightly amended for the study of veterans, presents challenges that increase in difficulty in small increments enough to adjust settings can be done and then reinforced in the minds of users.
Randomized clinical trial of brain plasticity will include 132 service members who have mild t.b.i. half of them to train in the software of the company. The other half, a control group, play video games. Before the training starts, all tests of memory, learning, attention, planning, social control, post signs of disorder of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other factors. Patients in the trials after three months of training and again three months later. Any persistent improvement would be a step forward in the status quo.
T.B.I. patients are mostly helped with "compensatory" strategies, said Tiffanie Sim, a Neuropsychologist who sees many such patients in transitional programme for the rehabilitation of the VA polytrauma in Palo Alto. Patients are given application programming for your portable devices and taught ways to compensate for the loss of memory, said Dr. Sim.
Doctors sometimes prescribe drugs to treat anxiety or depression in patients T.B.I. hoping to release the patient cognitive reserves, said Dr. David Elkin, a psychiatrist at San Francisco General Hospital. But otherwise not much even intends to address the underlying injury.
Specialist Orlando Gonzalez, 23, is recovering from a brain injury received his squadron of infantry in Afghanistan when suicide bomber. Specialist Gonz?lez is currently a patient at the center of Palo Alto polytrauma in physical therapy of partial paralysis on his left side. For the first month after his injury, he said, he "could barely remember things at all." It has improved under treatment.
If it is effective software as science applying, patients futures specialist Gonzalez can do an hour of brain training powered by the software every day, along with physical therapy exercises to help restore cognitive functions.
Theoretically, the brain training software could deal with cognitive problems and post-traumatic stress disorder, said Henry Mahncke, Executive Director of the science candidates, a neurologist and a former student of Dr. Merzenich.
To make sure that the product will be of interest to this generation of veterans, the company is "re-pelado" your brain Fitness software: "so it has a look and feel is suitable for boys you played Xbox 50 hours a week," said Dr. Mahncke.
Thinking that join a gym but it quickly tired of the routine, Dr. Doraiswamy said he was skeptical of the veterans get stuck with the software. Even so, said the trial is worth the penalty.
"They have to start somewhere," he said.
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