Principal Investigators
Honors & News
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October 4, 2011
Has Your Brain Already Crystallized?
As it turns out, keeping pace in ever-more-electronic world is no small feat for the aging brain. That's because our mental circuitry – the most frequently used neuron pathways, like well-traveled roads – tends to
crystallize
into a series of expressways over time. But that doesn't mean paving new paths (by, say, learning in middle age) is a lost cause – it just demands special learning techniques and a little more patience.That's heartening news for adults who are headed back to school, shifting careers in later life, or simply want to be lifelong learners, says neuropsychologist Dr. Mark Mapstone. In the clip below, he sheds more light on our amazing (and aging) brains.
Keeping pace in ever-more-wired world is no small feat for the aging brain. That's because our mental circuitry -- the most frequently used neuron pathways, like well-traveled roads -- tends to "crystallize" into a series of mental expressways over time. But that doesn't mean paving new paths by, say, learning in middle age, is a lost cause -- it just demands special learning techniques and a little more patience. That's heartening news for adults who are headed back to school, shifting careers in later life, or simply want to be lifelong learners, says neuropsychologist Dr. Mark Mapstone. In this clip, he sheds more light on our amazing (and aging) brains.
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September 27, 2011
Stop Stroke Before it Stops You – 4 Things You Should Know
Ask any number of men what they think their odds of having a stroke are, and you might find many of them believe stroke is frighteningly unpredictable and can attack like a bolt from the blue – without warning, trailing death and disability in its wake.
That idea is dangerously wrong. The truth is that a stroke is the bullet at the end of a very long barrel and there is a lot you can do to dodge it.
The path to stroke can be started by heart disease – especially if you have an irregular heartbeat. It also can be started by arterial disease – especially if there is a build-up of plaque in the arteries of the neck. The chain of events that begins with cardiovascular disease and ends in stroke can take years, or even decades to evolve. You probably will not know that it is happening.
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September 20, 2011
Need More Memory (No, We’re Not Talking RAM)
Searching frantically for misplaced car keys. Fumbling for the name of a new acquaintance. Providing an accurate eye-witness testimony. Treasuring past moments with a loved one lost. What, exactly, is this thing we call “memory”? How do our brains manage to process, store and recall so much sensory footage – even lifeless data, like phone numbers – almost reflexively?
Neuropsychologist Dr. Mark Mapstone co-directs URMC's memory care clinic, which features a team of neurologists, psychiatrists, a geriatrician, a neuropsychologist, a psychometrician (expert in measuring psychological function), a social worker and a nurse practitioner. He weighs in on these and other burning questions in the clip below.
What, exactly, is this thing we call "memory?" How do our brains manage to process, store and recall so much sensory footage -- even lifeless data, like phone numbers -- almost reflexively? And perhaps the more urgent question is this: Could the torrent of modern technology, with its so many "memory crutches" -- GPS navigators, calculators, search engines, smart phones -- be eroding our brain's natural capacity to remember? In this clip, neuropsychologist Dr. Mark Mapstone weighs in.
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July 14, 2011
Is the Internet Replacing Your Memory?
Google, Facebook, Internet Movie Database, and many other sources of information on the Internet are changing the way in which we remember. As a result of this instant access, growing numbers of us may actually be outsourcing our memories. It's called the
Google effect
and it is documented online in the journal Science.Google is just another form of external memory,
says Betsy Sparrow, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Columbia University in New York City. Neuropsychologist Mark Mapstone, Ph.D., University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y., isn't sure the Google effect is such a good thing for our memories.This is not as good for us from a brain perspective,
he says.If you download your information to a device, you are not using your brain to make connections as you should be.
That said,When you don't burden your memory with rote remembering, it does free up activity for more complex thinking,
he says. -
March 28, 2002
New Findings About Brain's 'Compass' Offer Clues About Alzheimer's
A tiny section of the brain that is ravaged by Alzheimer's disease is more important for our ability to orient ourselves than scientists have long thought, helping to explain why people with the disease become lost so easily. The findings by neuroscientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center are reported in the March 29 issue of Science.
Neurologist Charles Duffy, M.D., Ph.D., previously discovered that a small section of brain tissue slightly above and behind the ear - known as the medial superior temporal area (MST) - acts much like a compass, instantly updating your mental image of your body's movements through space. In new research, Duffy and graduate student Michael Froehler show that the MST acts not only as a compass but also as a sort of biological global positioning system, providing a mental map to help us understand exactly where we are in the world and how we got there.
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January 31, 2002
Road Skills Hint At "Motion Blindness" Of Alzheimer's
Doctors have added to the evidence that patients with Alzheimer's disease lose their way not simply because their memory is failing but because they are subject to a unique form of brain damage that causes symptoms doctors call "motion blindness." Some of the new data comes from driving tests of a small number of patients, where researchers have linked the condition to the loss of one specific driving skill: the ability to stay in one's lane while driving.
While it's obvious that people with Alzheimer's disease are losing their memory, that's only part of the reason why they become lost,
says neurologist Charles Duffy, M.D., Ph.D., who leads the research team at the University of Rochester Medical Center.These patients also lose their ability to perceive their own motion. That's ultimately what puts them at much greater risk than others of becoming lost.
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April 18, 1995
Two Scholars Win Sloan Fellowships
Charles J. Duffy, professor of neurology and ophthalmology, and Turan Erdogan, assistant professor of optics, have been awarded 1995 Sloan Research Fellowships.
The two University of Rochester professors were among 100 scientists and economists selected from a field of 400 nominees. Each Sloan Research Fellowship recipient is awarded $30,000 over a two-year period. Sloan Research Fellows are engaged in pioneering research in physics, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, neuroscience and economics. Once they have been selected, Fellows are free to pursue whatever line of inquiry interests them. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation created the fellowship program in 1955 to encourage research by young scholars at a critical time in their careers.
