A popular scripture goes:
In the beginning there was sound. That’s the actual translation – sound, vibration, logos, word.
All samesies.
But, now, thanks to recent research, it may serve as a reboot “in the end” as well – for Alzheimer’s patients.
Great news.
(Since my pop’s one ask-me-the-same-question-twice-in-5-minutes away from the nursing home I applied to work at.)
I sat down to watch a documentary recently called “The Memory Loss Tapes”. Actually, I may have a touch of dotard-itis myself, because I think I’ve seen at least part of it before – and forgot. Nonetheless, watching it a second go round wasn’t any less heartbreaking. When you get the love narrative of “The Notebook” or “Away From Her”, it seems so much more romanticized. These lovely, distinguished old women who just seem like confused baby birds – yet still all done up in their impeccable makeup, make the tale less tough to ingest. The reality’s far grimmer. “Tapes” (that’s what I’m shortening the doc name to from here on out) focused on a kinda video diary of different women and men going through it – and among the most devastating to see was a woman slumped over in her wheelchair, petrified of a serpentine animal only she could see. Much like a schizophrenic having delusions, these experiences are 100% real to the poor bastard going through it. Every sense they have says that reality is sending them snakes, spiders, and strangers who mean to do ’em harm. Can you imagine living that way? How about looking in the mirror, and being utterly convinced the person looking back at you is just some callous bitch who doesn’t know how to say hi?
The disease’s always intrigued me – as with anything that’s been heretofore dubbed “incurable”.
So when I read this piece on Australian researchers coming up with a way to combat the plaques responsible for inducing dementia, it was a – no pun intended (#okmaybejustalil)- mindblow. ’cause what they’re doing isn’t chemically altering grams or gramps’ noggin contents, but mechanically doing so. How? Via ultrasound. What happens is that they ping these sound waves in which do a sorta Ali Baba on your brain’s cave doors – specifically the blood-brain barrier. Usually that ish is closed up Fort Knox style, to prevent bacteria from doing a pirate style B ‘n E and taking over your whole body boat.
But by opening it “gently”, things called microglial cells can ninja in and do some serious Dyson action on the forgetsy-toxins. Within a few hours, your barrier’s restored. And, boom. So’s your cognitive catalog of life.
Should be interesting to see how this thing progresses – I’m game for anything that doesn’t have so many side effects that the lady who writes on rice at the carnival gets hired to scrawl ’em all out. But, I do wonder, could tripping the system of your B-trip (#BoodBrainBarrier) be detrimental, even for just a few hours? Like, would you need to otherwise be in optimal health to make sure no opportunistic pathogens (bugs that strike when the iron’s hot and immune system’s sad) commuting on your sanguine freeway can make like Jim Morrison and break on through to the other side?
It’s gonna be so nice not having to repeat myself anymore during parent convos like I’m talking to clone Lil Johns.
(Ironic, considering his latest music video laughter-bated my own brain into mush.)
Now, enjoy some in-the-end vibration to vibrate your hind-end to:
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