It seems that many people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia experience occasional short episodes of lucidity (especially when nearing death).
This suggests that memories, personality, and reasoning ability might not be (entirely?) destroyed, but simply inaccessible or unable to work properly, and that if the root cause for this malfunction could be treated a partial or even total recovery might be indeed possible…
The “especially when nearing death” is entirely explainable due to the proximity to the death. No one is going to remember Aunt Ida’s moment of lucidity three months prior. They’re going to remember the one the day before she died.
Yeah, how memories are actually stored, and the actual input-output functions of neurons, are very much up in the air. Once the brain has sizeable holes in it I’m guessing a lot is just gone, but something might be retained.
Theoretically possible has very little to do with practically and recently solved, though.
It seems that many people suffering from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia experience occasional short episodes of lucidity (especially when nearing death).
This suggests that memories, personality, and reasoning ability might not be (entirely?) destroyed, but simply inaccessible or unable to work properly, and that if the root cause for this malfunction could be treated a partial or even total recovery might be indeed possible…
The “especially when nearing death” is entirely explainable due to the proximity to the death. No one is going to remember Aunt Ida’s moment of lucidity three months prior. They’re going to remember the one the day before she died.
Yeah, how memories are actually stored, and the actual input-output functions of neurons, are very much up in the air. Once the brain has sizeable holes in it I’m guessing a lot is just gone, but something might be retained.
Theoretically possible has very little to do with practically and recently solved, though.