Overlooking Down Syndrome

Dazee is frustrated because we have not included any discussion of Down Syndrome at this site, even while autism and other forms of severe disability are frequent topics of consideration. There are several reasons for our neglect. First, the principal contributor to this blog has no experience with these kids. He hasn’t studied them (or animal models of this inherited malady) directly, in any meaningful way. There are better authorities out there in the scientific community. Second, these children differ from other kids with cognitive impairments that we’ve studied, by the fact that their condition commonly results in the disabling of one of the key brain centers (the “basal nucleus of Meynert”, a main source of the critical neurotransmitter acetylcholine) that is a primary enabler of learning. Our therapeutic approaches are based on the hypothesis that we can progressively improve (to a variable extent, normalize) brain function in even severely impaired kids using their powerful, still-intact capacities for corrective brain change. In Down Syndrome children, this potentially-corrective brain-change machinery is severely dysfunctional. One very interesting aspect of the neurology of DS is the fact that the basal nucleus is substantially intact in these kids at birth, but its functionality slowly deteriorates — usually over a period of several years — in infancy and very early childhood. These regressive changes have been associated with ...
Source: On the Brain by Dr. Michael Merzenich, Ph.D. - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Autism Origins, Treatments Brain Fitness BrainHQ Childhood Learning Cognitive Impairment in Children Cognitive impairments Language Development Source Type: blogs