- In our own words, how would you describe Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI)?
Mild cognitive impairment is a condition in which a person has minor issues with cognition; their mental capacities such as thinking or memory.Mainly, in MCI, these issues are worse than what would be expected for a healthy individual of their age.
- A. What is the function of “Brain Networks”?
Brain networks play a crucial role in controlling the salience of both the external inputs as well as in internal brain events. Primarily, it assists in directing attention through the identification of vital cognitive and biological events.
- How does the activity of these networks change when comparing a normal individual to a person suffering from dementia?
Mainly, scientists have discovered that a person’s brain network changes as they grow older. This is exactly how a brain network of an average middle-aged resembles.The thicker the line the stronger the connection. Generally, in an aged person’s brain, the components of the networks become weaker, and their structure changes too. Cognitive function suffers as the connections grow looser.
- A U.S. study examined the relationship between walking and cognitive function. Describe 3 changes seen in walking with an MCI patient.
- A patient with MCI walks slowly, although his lower body has no issue.
- A person suspected to have MCI also takes comparatively shorter walking steps.
- Lastly, an individual who may have MCI doe not distribute his body weight uniformly on his feet and therefore likely to wobble.
- How can micro-bleeds in the brain be detected with diagnostic imaging?
Micro-bleeds are the tiny chronic brain damages that are arises from structural abnormalities of the tiny brain vessels. On account of the paramagnetic features of blood degradation products, micro-bleeds can be detected in vivo through the use of specific MRI sequences.
- A study out of the University of Illinois looked at the relationship between moderate activities (an example is given brisk walking 1hr-3x’s /week) and the improved cognitive function.
- The production of what 2 proteins were found to increase with these types of activity?
The two proteins are a brain-derived neurotrophic factor and vascular endothelial growth factor.
- Physiologically how do these proteins help with brain function?
(i) Brain-derived neurotrophic factor
This type of protein facilitates the production of new neurons. It is due to this reason that researchers believe that brisk walking significantly boosts the connectivity of brain networks.
(ii)vascular endothelial growth factor
The protein facilitates new blood vessels formation to replace the old and damaged ones.