Memory Loss
The dain bramaged place in my brain that keeps me from remembering where I put my keys, I mean cell phone, is not the same place that indicates the onset of Alzheimer's. Yay (I think)! It seems from a recent study that the place in the brain that is responsible for senior moments, my usual types of memory loss, like misplaced keys, is in an entirely different area of the brain than the area identified for Alzheimer's. The normal old age kind of forgetfulness may be treatable in the future (near future I hope, if I ever expect to be able to keep up with my cell phone). Apparently there is a specific gene in the hippocampus that begins to produce less and less of a certain necessary protein and hence that section of the brain's memory center quits working properly in older people. This area called the dentate gyrus has long been suspected of being vulnerable to the effects of aging. But wait a minute, where did I leave my cell phone, or was it my car keys I was looking for?