ナショナルジオグラフィックのインスタグラム(natgeo) - 11月12日 06時48分

Photo by Maggie Steber. November is National Alzheimer's Month. This is a photograph I shot for a story on memory for National Geographic Magazine. Many people confuse dementia with Alzheimer's. But they are not the same and there are many types of dementia. These 2 brain slices, courtesy of the medical school at UCLA in Los Angeles, show what happens in the brain. The lower slice shows a normal brain and the upper slice shows the ravages of Alzheimer's. Signals traveling through neurons, in what scientists call a neuron forest, form the basis of memories, thoughts, and feelings. Neurons are the chief type of cell destroyed by Alzheimer's disease. An adult brain contains about 100 billion nerve cells or neurons. Signals that form memories and thoughts move through an individual nerve cell as a tiny electrical charge. Nerve cells connect to one another at synapses. Alzheimer's disease destroys both the way electrical charges travel within cells and the activity of neurotransmitters. Alzheimer's disease leads to nerve cell death and tissue loss throughout the brain. Over time the brain shrinks dramatically affecting nearly all of its functions. In the Alzheimer's brain the cortex shrivels up damaging areas involved in thinking, planning, and remembering. Shrinking is especially severe in the hippocampus and area of the cortex that plays a key role in formation of new memories. Ventricles which are fluid-filled spaces within the brain grow larger. Plaques which are abnormal clusters of protein fragments build up between the nerve cells thus blocking memories from being recalled. I encourage all caregivers caring for a loved one to study what happens in order to be better informed and thus better prepared. I can speak from personal experience having cared for my mother for the last nine years of her life as she suffered memory loss. It is a terrifying thing to go through for the people who are being forgotten but much worse for the people who are experiencing it. We can run from it or be the warriors for our loved ones. Be the warrior! #alzheimers #memory

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