Mahal na Mahal Kita Paulyn

This happens every single day in my world: It is daylight here in Vista, California and my beautiful fiancee is sleeping under the Philippine early dawn. July 1st this all will begin to change. We will no longer be subject to the different time zones, conflicting schedules, or expensive long distance charges that we are now confronting. Paulyn...you are worth this and many more sacrifices, but it's time I get off my butt and catch that airplane to Manila. Passport? New one will be here before you know it.

This is my attempt to bid farewell friends, collegues, former classmates, and family. I will miss you dearly and expect that you will miss me too. Mom, Dad, Christie...love you and will miss you. Call me! There is a beautiful island by the name of Boracay and from what I understand, the golfing is superb! We will meet you there!

As for the party guys - why not! For all of those that read this and have the opinion that I am quiting school or giving up something, you haven't met my Pinay! My education will continue exactly where I left it off. In the fall, somewhere I will be sitting in a classroom or in a laboratory disecting something or preparing for an exam. That you have Paulyn to thank for...she insists.

Do not be sad or cry for me! Instead, be happy...I am!

Love to all...

Paulyn...I dedicate this update to you

Just when you think that you have life figured out; just when you have learned to shut off your heart, to remain forever callous, cold, and calculated; that same life that shuts you off, that beats you up like a rag doll, throws you for another unexpected loop. (Honey, sit quietly for one moment and listen to my heart speak to yours.)

I suppose that I have been hiding from myself, my fears, and even my own potential. It is an enormous responsibilty to fully embrace your innermost dreams. So, in this my public forum, I will disclose my most profound desire; one that I've at times chased like a madman; one that I've at other times avoided like a plague. More than becoming an physician or a neuroscientist; more than aquiring the "stuff" that our modern society says the we should hoard away; even more that becoming "self-actualized" like our cognitive-behaviorists want us to believe we should be. We all want to be loved...

The casual reader might understandably ask: what does love feel like? The sharpest pain that I've ever felt is when I came to the undeniable realization that the person that I loved with all my heart and soul; that I would have defended her life with my own; that I would bave dropped everthing dear and sacred to me on her request; and that almost cost me to lose my soul, didn't love me. That very anguish nearly caused me a personal tradegy of which recovery wouldn't have been possible. Luckily I am quite resiliant; I learned from a very young age to roll with the punches, and I obviously got through it relatively unscarred. It has taken a very fruitless relationship following this devastating realization for me to come to the conclusion that no matter how far I travel down the highway of despair; I cannot chose with whom I will love. If only life were so simple. Oh how wonderful to say that tomorrow I will move to such and such town, get such and such job, and fall in love with such and such person; and I will live happily ever after following my elaborate blueprint.

Ha! Wouldn't that be nice, to plan and self-concieve the love that will stop you in your tracks. touch your soul and move your heart? My dear, dear Pinay; that would be nice. Just not possible, at least not in my world.

Being in love with someone from a foreign land is very bewildering at best. At worst, for some, it makes for an impossible scenario. Who relocates to be with the one they love? Political red tape, burocracies endless as the sun, and corruption all play an important factor in deciding who will give up their life as they know it.

To be continued my love...

New Neurons Not So Important?

By Kelli WhitlockBurton
ScienceNOW Daily News
3 May 2006

Give a mouse more room and a few toys, and good things happen. New neurons sprout in the hippocampus, while spatial memory improves and anxiety eases. As tempting as it might be to tie the new neurons to the behavioral changes, a new study finds no link between them. The results contradict a popular assumption among scientists that new neurons in the hippocampus contribute to the cognitive boost that comes with a more stimulating environment.

The notion that two parts of the brain--the hippocampus and olfactory bulb--continue to produce new neurons into adulthood has been widely accepted since the late 1990s. But just what role those new cells play in cognitive function remains a mystery. Recent studies have found that animals housed in larger cages with opportunities for exercise and social interaction generate more new neurons in the hippocampus than do animals in more cramped quarters with no playmates. Scientists in the lab of Columbia University neurobiologist René Hen hoped to find the link between hippocampal neurogenesis and certain behaviors such as learning and memory that involve the hippocampus.

Hen's team zapped mice with a focused dose of radiation to halt neurogenesis in a portion of the animals' hippocampuses. They then placed half the animals in regular cages and half in enhanced environments for 6 weeks before testing their anxiety and spatial memory. To the researchers' surprise, the animals with better accommodations had improved spatial memory skills and were less anxious than mice in smaller confines, despite not having any new neurons in their hippocampuses. "We thought we would see a dependence on neurogenesis in some of the behaviors we saw in the enriched environment, but that's not what we found," says Hen, whose team published the findings online 30 April in Nature Neuroscience.

"This doesn't say that adult neurogenesis plays no role in functional changes [in the brain] associated with enriched environments, but it does highlight that neurogenesis is definitely not the whole story," says Elizabeth Gould, a neurobiologist at Princeton University. Gould points out that Hen's study examines only two specific behaviors, a limitation Hen plans to address in future work. "The challenge is to figure out which of the many hippocampal-dependent tasks are affected and which are not," Hen says.

Related sites

Read the study

A recent Science News Focus story about new neurons

My Newest Discovery

A quick update first; my friend is receiving much needed assistance from friends, colleagues, and even some people she has never met before. Just reinforces my already strong belief that the human spirit is still amazingly good. Some that is...

Tau Proteins

My life as I know it has changed so incredibly much in the last year it is unbelievable. I don't usually go into a lot of self-disclosure in this forum; today I am making an exception. You could ask why...Most likely you don't care. That's okay! A little over one year ago I was living in San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca, in Mexico determined to live there and somehow slip off into oblivion; never to contribute, never to share myself, never to grow, never to dream again. Man oh man, how life changes sometimes?

I am in the process of preparing my transfer contracts and completing some rather boring General Education requirements to leave the inspiring grounds of Palomar College (San Marcos, CA) to head a few miles down the Pacific Coast to La Jolla, California, home to one of the finest research universities in the world, The University of California-San Diego. This is a privilege and honor reserved for some of the world's most talented minds. It is amazing that I will be there soon. Maybe even more amazing is that I am doing this at 38 years old.

What does this have to do with tau proteins? And if you are like I was, you may not even know what tau proteins are. Don't feel bad...most people don't. But they are so important to us. Read on...

Tau is a binding protein that is known most commonly as the glue that holds together the transport part of our neurons. (If you don't know what a neuron is you might just be at the wrong blog site, no offense.) Six distinct tau isoforms are readily found in the neural soma. However it seems that there is one particular isoform of tau that inappropriately interacts with a certain enzyme, glycogen synthase kinase, and a damaging hyperphosphorylation process is set into motion that many scientists postulate as being the culprit that contributes to the neural death associated with Alzheimer's disease. This is an amazingly complex process that I am just beginning to grasp, but seems that my life's pursuit is becoming just that; understanding and somehow contributing to the unraveling of this devastating disease that has already taken the life of some one I loved dearly, and is in the process of destroying another person in my family.

This disease is possibly one of the greatest challenges that faces our modern day society, with an estimated 5 million cases in the U.S. alone. It has past epidemic proportions by even the most conservative estimate. Nearly everyone I know has lost someone to Alzheimer's. Most sources agree that once you reach 85 years of age you have a 50% chance of developing AD. I recently read that as our society ages and if we reach a life expectancy of 120 years of age nearly 85% will present some form of AD. These numbers are staggering and appalling.

Dr. Steven DeKosky, my hat is off to you sir and would love to shadow you for even one day.

To all the Alzheimer's Disease Research Centers in the U.S.; especially in La Jolla, the offer is the same...I want to contribute.

To all that have read this...thank you and godspeed.