Last year, Jeffrey Gonce, a Psychology teacher at Red Land High School (West Shore School District, PA) asked his students to “complete a project describing a recent brain (or genetic) study that affects behavior.” The students could opt to post their articles online, and Jeffrey was kind enough to send us a link to read the results. We enjoyed reading them all, and published in our blog this beautiful essay, titled “Tis better to give than receive”, written by Alexandra, which  was subsequently included in a number of neuroscience an psychology blogs. Earlier this year we highlighted this piece on Musical training as mental exercise for cognitive performance, written by Megan.

This quarter, Jeffrey also sent us his students’ essays, and we are going to recognize and publish this great essay by high school student Kristin H.

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Alzheimer’s Disease

– By Kristin H.

Alzheimer’s is a disease which causes people, generally of an older age, to lose memory and forget how to accomplish simple tasks. Dementia is the disease which Alzheimer’s is a part and about four million Americans were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1999, a number which is expected to grow (Altman 8-9). Dementia is an unspecific brain disease commonly associated with memory loss and another serious brain dysfunction. Dementia is an incurable disease (”Dementia”). A new drug treatment that replaces the enzyme missing in an Alzheimer’s brain may be able to cure Alzheimer’s disease in it’s late stages (Coghlan).

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Kevin brings a new edition of the IQs Corner Headlines from the Brain and Mind Blogsphere. Worth reading if you are interested in cognitive and educational psychology.

A few recent blog carnivals: the always great Tangled Bank (General Science), and new editions of Brain Blogging and Attention Deficit Disorder.

Have a great celebration today!