Saturday News

Contents of This Week Saturday News:

• Headline - Cognition
• Eclectic - Many articles from many Guest Bloggers about Stroke 
• Aphasia Patients Can Improve Long After Stroke
• Impulses and the Brain, aka Fuck! Where Did My Filters Go?
• Exercise Helps Recovery Because it Strengthens What?
• Low Levels of Pro-inflammatory Agent Help Cognition in Rats
• Weight Loss Surgery Improves Memory and Cognition
• Memory Aids Have to Be in My Face
• Bilateral Integration
• Intelligence
• Josh Kaufman: The First 20 Hours -- How to Learn Anything
• Unmasking a Beauty
• One Wedding and a Funeral
• Introduction Movie Mark Ittleman using Teaching of Talking Method Stroke Patients with Aphasia
• … yet
• Weekly Columnists
• Sunday Stroke Survival: Blocked Cog in the Works
• TED Talks: Allan Jones - A Map of the Brain
• Tadpole Update: Spokes Fighting Strokes - Nov/22/2014
• Jackie The Jester: Being a Canadian
• Rick Mercer Report: Rick and Log Rolling & Norwood Fall Fair
• Laid-Back Administration: No Posts This Week
• Daily Comics: FB Or FW, Dilbert, Mayes, Doonesbury

Definition: Cognition

Cognition From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In science, cognition is the set of all mental abilities and processes related to knowledge: attention, memory & working memory, judgement & evaluation, reasoning & "computation", problem solving & decision making, comprehension & production of language, etc. Cognition is by humans conscious and unconscious, concrete or abstract, as well as intuitive (like knowledge of a language) and conceptual (like a model of a language). Cognitive processes use existing knowledge and generate new knowledge.

These processes are analyzed from different perspectives within different contexts, notably in the fields of linguistics, anesthesia, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, education,philosophy, anthropology, biology, systemics, and computer science. These and other different approaches to the analysis of cognition are synthesised in the developing field of cognitive science, a progressively autonomous academic discipline. Within psychology and philosophy, the concept of cognition is closely related to abstract concepts such as mind and intelligence. It encompasses the mental functions, mental processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent entities (humans, collaborative groups, human organizations, highly autonomous machines, and artificial intelligences).

Thus, the term's usage varies across disciplines; for example, in psychology and cognitive science, "cognition" usually refers to an information processing view of an individual's psychological functions. It is also used in a branch of social psychology called social cognition to explain attitudes, attribution, and group dynamics. In cognitive psychology and cognitive engineering, cognition is typically assumed to be information processing in a participant’s or operator’s mind or brain.

Cognition can in some specific and abstract sense also be artificial.

Etymology

Video: Cognition

Recovering Cognition After Stroke (Stroke Recovery #4)

Uploaded on Nov 28, 2007

A person who has had a stroke may suddenly have trouble speaking, or be unable to recall names or faces. While normal, this is quite frightening, and requires treatment. Watch More Health Videos at Health Guru: http://www.healthguru.com/?YT


Standard YouTube License @ Healthguru

Eclectic Stuff

Definition: Eclectic(noun) a person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.

Aphasia Patients Can Improve Long After Stroke

Jeff Porter
Stroke of Faith

Thursday, January 24, 2013

I wasn't exactly a "senior" when my stroke happened, but I did suffer with aphasia, affecting my reading and speaking. It took therapy and time to bring me back to a somewhat previous level.

So I was interested in the small item about a study looking how therapy can help long after a stroke. My own speech abilities showed improvement long after, even without therapy. Here's a link to the story about how therapy can still benefit older, long-time aphasia sufferers, study shows:

"We have shown that language therapy has a positive impact even long time after stroke, and not only on language but also on general cognition, as shown by the positive changes in the default network," said researcher Ana Ines Ansaldo in a statement. "My hope is that these findings will change clinical attitudes towards seniors who suffer from language disorders, by providing intensive, specific and focused stimulation for these patients." 

The study appears in the journal Brain and Language.

See the original article:

Aphasia Patients Can Improve Long After Stroke

in

Stroke of Faith

Impulses and the Brain, aka Fuck! Where Did My Filters Go?

Joyce Hoffman
The Tales of a Stroke Patien

Jun 4, 2014

SSTattler: Re-published Saturday, June 14, 2014 IB aka F! WDMFG?

In 1848, in a report written by Dr. John Harlow, M.D., the doctor related the unfortunate, rock-blasting accident by a railway worker, Phineas Gage, who had a long metal rod blasted through his left cheek, through his eye, and out of the top of his head. Consequently, the accident caused damage to his frontal lobe.

Gage survived the accident and had his memory, speech, and motor skills intact, but he had well-documented changes to his personality. (The photograph is of brain-injury survivor Gage, 1823–1860, shown holding the tamping iron which injured him).

Before his misfortune, Gage was described as organized, respectful to others, and well-tempered. According to Dr. Harlow, following the accident, he was "fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity, and manifesting but little deference for his fellows." In other words, he was disorganized, had hissy fits, cursed, and disrespected others. The cause? He had damage to the frontal lobe of his brain.

Exercise Helps Recovery Because it Strengthens What?

Peter G. Levine
Stronger After Stroke

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Interesting video, below, by one of my favorite neuroscientists, Dale Corbett.  For the record: There is no one I know up doing a better job of translating what neuroscientists have to offer to stroke recovery. Have a watch. The insights really start at 1:40 in. I'll post my critique below the video.


Standard YouTube License @ HSF CSR

The overall message is important. Exercise is essential. It is unfortunate that the message is sort of convoluted in this video. They're talking first about TIA, and how if you have a TIA you should use exercise as a way to lessen the chance of a full-blown stroke. Then the discussion takes an obtuse tangent into how exercise is important to recovery, and then with no real explanation doubles back to talking about TIA again. Still, while maybe the messages should have been separated, both are important.

Low Levels of Pro-inflammatory Agent Help Cognition in Rats

Dean Reinke
Deans’ Stroke Musing

Wednesday, January 29, 2014

I would expect this to be a great line of stroke research but there is no great stroke association to ask if this is being researched in humans. We just may never know the answer to such a simple question - Low Levels of Pro-inflammatory Agent Help Cognition in Rats.

Although inflammation is frequently a cause of disease in the body, research from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio indicates that low levels of a pro-inflammatory cytokine in the brain are important for cognition. Cytokines are proteins produced by the immune system.

Jennifer Donegan, graduate student, and David Morilak, PhD, professor of pharmacology in the School of Medicine, found that neutralizing the cytokine interleukin-6 in the brain impaired reversal learning in both stressed and nonstressed rats. Reversal learning is a form of cognitive flexibility that is diminished in psychiatric diseases such as depression, schizophrenia and post-traumatic stress disorder. Cognitive flexibility is the ability to change previously learned thoughts and behaviors in response to changes in the environment.

“When we started the project, we thought cognitive flexibility would be impaired by stress-induced inflammation in a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex,” Donegan said. “We decided to block interleukin-6 during stress to prevent the cognitive deficit, and to our surprise this made things worse. This suggested that it may actually be beneficial to maintain a low level of this pro-inflammatory cytokine in the brain.”

As a key next step, the scientists were then able to fix the cognitive deficit caused by stress by restoring a low level of the cytokine specifically in the prefrontal cortex. Both scientists caution, however, that there is still much to learn about interleukin-6’s role in cognition and in diseases like depression. “We’ve replicated just one piece of a very complex disease so we can understand the biology,” Dr. Morilak said. “We found that, in one brain region, one cytokine facilitates cognitive flexibility and is beneficial after chronic stress. But we delivered the cytokine specifically into that brain region using a virus, which we cannot do in people. And its role in inflammation may be very different than in normal conditions. There’s still a lot of work to do.”

Source: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

See the original article:

Low Levels of Pro-inflammatory Agent Help Cognition in Rats

in

Deans' Stroke Musing

Weight Loss Surgery Improves Memory and Cognition

Bill (William) Yates
Brain Posts

7th January 2014

I have reviewed some research evidence documenting the adverse effect of obesity on cognition.

Dementia rates do appear increased in obese populations but the mechanism and issue of causality remain unclear.

If there is a direct effect of obesity on brain function, one might expect weight loss to improve cognition.

There have been a series of papers examining changes in cognition following bariatric weight loss surgery using the Longitudinal Assessment of Bariatric Surgery study.

At baseline, about one fourth of the sample showed impaired performance on at least one neuropsychological domain.

Memory Aids Have to Be in My Face

Rebecca Dutton
Home After a Stroke

September 13, 2011

When I forgot to pick up a friend who has a brain injury I felt guilty.  She blamed herself because she thought she had remembered the wrong date.  This painful experience taught me that memory aids have to be in my face.  I can repeatedly ignore a stack of reminders sitting in an out of the way place.  I use classic memory aids in some unusual ways.

The current month sits on my kitchen table where I eat breakfast.  I used to highlight important events, but the page of bright colors was distracting by the end of the month.  Now I use 2 colored tabs to mark important dates and move the tabs when the events are over.  I fold the page for each month in half and put future months in the napkin holder on the right.  Every piece of paper is stuffed in it's respective month.  The arrow is pointing to a month that has a postcard from my dentist reminding me to make an appointment.  I got that postcard six weeks ago.  If I had put the postcard on my kitchen counter who knows where it would be now.  I also tear a page from an amusing day-to-day calendar before I start to eat which tells me what the current date is.  Remembering can be fun.  Breakfast = funny joke = date.

When I open a new month I put the papers in chronological order. First I have to schedule blood work.  Then I have to pay a bill and use a ticket for a dance performance.  This table is where I sit to tie my shoes.  I put the papers on a cheap picture easel so they are in my face when I sit down.  I also keep sticky Post-It notes and a pen every where I sit so I can write notes and stick them on my shirt.  If I leave the note on my shirt too long it falls off when I walk.  When that happens I stop what I'm doing and do what's written on the note.

A word of caution about memory aids.  What helps one person remember doesn't make a bit of sense to another person.  The memory aids I use are only examples that may help you discover memory aids that work for you.  There are also lots of places that meet the "where you sit down every day" criteria.  Negotiate with your family to find a prominent place that you can put your memory aids. It requires others to adjust to a few changes, but they will appreciate your improved memory.  Readers of my blog have said how organized I am.  I fooled you.  My memory is on paper.

See the original article:

Memory Aids Have to Be in My Face

in

Home After a Stroke

Bilateral Integration

Steven H. Cornelius
Music and Stroke

January 21, 2012

The following is an except from a presentation I gave at the Inaugural Interdisciplinary Symposium on Quantitative Research in Music and Medicine. Ogden, Utah. June 3, 2011. The presentation will be published in its entirety in the 2011 Proceedings of the Interdisciplinary Society for Quantitative Measurement in Music and Medicine. Precise publication information will follow when it  becomes available. Many thanks to the conference board for allowing publication of this material in my blog.

My first post-stroke memories begin around four days after the event. Subjectively, my thinking seemed dazed, but relatively normal. I just felt very tired. It was not until I tried to act in the world—perform simple addition or subtraction, read, tell time, speak, or tried to do just about anything—that the fractures in my mind became apparent. So too with my body. At rest, it felt normal, completely pain free. Until I tried to act, I had no idea I could not chew and swallow normally, walk, or move my left arm and fingers. Indeed, I had no left side sensation whatsoever.

On the fifth day after the stroke, I found I could move my left wrist. Earlier in the day, a neurologist had asked if the stroke had affected my music cognition. I had no idea. I had not thought about music at all; mostly my mind was silent. The neurologist sang some pitch intervals and I identified them without difficulty. How about rhythm, he wondered. I tapped a clave pattern with my right hand, also with no apparent problem.

Intelligence

Amy Shissler
My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

May 26, 2013

I’m pretty smart.  One of the biggest things that annoyed me, and still annoys me to this day – you know what, A LOT of stuff has annoyed me.  A LOT.  I mean I had a stroke at age 30, that’s pretty annoying.  But this has been one of the biggest annoyances.  I lost nothing cognitively.  I was not affected cognitively whatsoever.  But a lot of people treated me like I was.  I can certainly understand being treated that way the first few months because my brain was recently massively injured – that’s gonna cause some immediate cognitive issues.  But after a few months, my cognition was fine.  I still said and did weird shit, couldn’t help it, but I wasn’t stupid - I was injured.  Don’t treat someone like they are any less intelligent, they’re not.  You have absolutely NO idea what’s going on in their head.

See the original article:

Intelligence

in

My Cerebellar Stroke Recovery

Josh Kaufman: The First 20 Hours -- How to Learn Anything

Ramon Florendo
Life After a Stroke

Published on Mar 14, 2013

TEDxCSU -- Josh Kaufman is the author of the #1 international bestseller, 'The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business', as well as the upcoming book 'The First 20 Hours: Mastering the Toughest Part of Learning Anything.' Josh specializes in teaching people from all walks of life how to master practical knowledge and skills. In his talk, he shares how having his first child inspired him to approach learning in a whole new way.



Standard YouTube License @ TED

See the original article:

Josh Kaufman: The First 20 Hours
--
How to Learn Anything

in

Life After a Stroke

Unmasking a Beauty

Diane
The Pink House On The Corner

Monday, November 10, 2014

So! Renovations started today on our new house! We are now in the "demolition" phase, meaning the things that need to be taken out, are being taken out.

Before...

One Wedding and a Funeral

Marcelle Greene
Up Stroke

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

I took two significant trips this year – one to England to attend a funeral, and the second to the East Coast to be in a wedding. Leaving town means missing my four weekly therapy sessions, which keep my physical discomfort to a minimum; so I’ve developed a strategy for dealing with muscle stiffness while traveling.

Following my own advice (Travel Tips for Survivors), I stayed in comfortable, accessible accommodations for multiple nights, and identified a local gym. Using a gym worked out the kinks from the plane ride and kept my energy level steady. I’ve learned from experience that surrendering to the notion that I need to rest for a couple days after a long plane ride simply allows my muscles to stiffen and lethargy to overcome me.

From the gym window in Kent County, England, I watched a horse frolicking in a green, green field. At the gym in Charlotte, North Carolina, my workout was interrupted by a fire drill; while we waited in the parking lot for the “all-clear,” my friend and her fiancé practiced their first dance, giving me a privileged first peek.

After the wedding my husband and I drove to Canada for a week in a cottage by a lake. I mustered my courage and got into a paddle boat, and an inner tube being towed behind a pontoon. But the triumph was climbing into a canoe and paddling – better on the left than the right, but enough for my husband to feel the contribution.

I can paddle a boat, canoe?

See the original article:

One Wedding and a Funeral

in

Up Stroke

Introduction Movie Mark Ittleman using Teaching of Talking Method Stroke Patients with Aphasia

Published on Apr 24, 2012

Mark Ittleman, The speech pathologist who can make a rock talk conducts a seminar in Houston Texas to demonstrate the Teaching of Talking Method. Ittleman has just published a revolutionary approach to speech therapy with those who have aphasia and voice difficulties. His book is entitled The Teaching of Talking: Learn to do expert speech therapy at home with children and adults.

This Introduction to the Teaching of Talking Method showcases Mark Ittleman, as he relates and stimulates speech and language. He is focused and engaging and shows that speech therapy can be done anywhere without a lot of papers, notebooks, or impersonal computers. What is important is the stimulation of an interchange of speaking around a person's interests and passions. Stop by our website at http://www.teachingoftalking.com/ and order your copy of Teaching of Talking.


Standard YouTube License @ MakeRocksTalk's channel

… yet

Barb Polan
Barb’s Recovery

Nov 13 / 2014

Today is the 5th anniversary of me having a stroke, the anniversary of the worst thing that ever happened to me. Of course, enormous good has been revealed through this ordeal – the importance of gratitude, admiration for the strength of others undergoing awful ordeals with grace, and the evidence of just how supportive my friends and family are.

I find this anniversary a sad event. Other stroke survivors celebrate the day – grateful they got a second chance at life. Those survivors view their anniversaries as “re-birthdays,” the chance to start again. I don’t – I view it as having wrecked my perfect life.

What might help someone relate to my view is to think of the passing of a favorite pet (let’s suppose it’s a dog). Your beloved dog dies. Sure, the new puppy is adorable (what puppy isn’t?), but it’s really not the same. The puppy cuddles with you, tickles you by licking your jawline, and brings you joy. But it takes a lot of time and work to train it.

And, most of all, although you adore your new puppy and the dog it becomes, the new dog does not replace the beloved old one. You still miss the one who’s gone.

Weekly Columnists

Sunday Stroke Survival: Blocked Cog in the Works

Jo Murphey
The Murphey Saga

Sunday, November 16, 2014

After a stroke you may have some cognition problems. Something is keeping the cogs in your brain from turning...mainly dead brain cells. What in the Dickens does that mean for us?



cognition [kog-nish-uh n] noun
1. the act or process of knowing; perception.
2. the product of such a process; something thus known, perceived, etc.
3. knowledge.
(courtesy of dictionary.com)

Uh oh, there's that word again...perception. I've often talked about perceptions in this blog. How you perceive things. How others perceive things. The possibilities of perception. The negatives and the positives of perception.

TED Talks: Allan Jones - A Map of the Brain

Uploaded on Nov 10, 2011

How can we begin to understand the way the brain works? The same way we begin to understand a city: by making a map. In this visually stunning talk, Allan Jones shows how his team is mapping which genes are turned on in each tiny region, and how it all connects up.



Standard YouTube License @ TED