Dino Salkic CBI

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/580694-why-aging-brains-are-more-vulnerable-to-alzheimers/

This article focuses on the susceptibility of the aging brain to Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. It states that aging leads to the formation of neurofibrillary tangles in the brain, a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Tangles are made from a protein called tau that becomes sticky and aggregates through phosphorylation. It has been found that tangles form in neurons in higher brain circuits of the aging primate brain, yet the sensory cortex is left undamaged. The damage occurs because tau forms at the synapses of neurons, preventing cell-to-cell communication and leading to brain degeneration and atrophy.

PDE4A, a phosphodiesterase, is found to be absent in aged brains. PDE4A is found at the synapses of neurons and inhibits a chemical "vicious cycle" that causes phosphorylation of tau. Aging brains are therefore much more susceptible to forming Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia due to the absence of PDE4A, which then leads to severe cognitive impairment and memory loss.

As the novel progresses into this last section of chapters, Amabelle has significantly aged and has begun to lose her memory with her age. The Generalissimo has been killed, and Amabelle discusses her relationship with Yves, which has grown very bland. Their relationship is described by this statement: "The careful words exchanged between people whose mere presence reminds each other of a great betrayal." Amabelle says that she wishes Yves would have found himself a woman to love, and that she felt as if she did not have a connection with family or friends, or a loved one like Sebastian. She states:

"I didn't have the strength to travel in search of distant relations whose lives had gone well enough without me; I didn't even know if they would recognize me if they saw me."

This quote shows Amabelle's inability to build meaningful relationships. Even her relationship with Yves, who traveled with Amabelle in surviving the killing of the Haitians, has grown sour. Father Romain, on the other hand, has put religion aside and decided to build his own relationship, and now has a wife and three young boys. He states that prayers could not heal him after the slaughter and his imprisonment, but says that for him to heal "it took holding a pretty and gentle wife and three new lives against my chest." He continues to say that "it took a love closer to the earth, closer to my own body, to stop my tears." Father Romain realized that building meaningful relationships and having that connection with other people helped him deal with his struggles, while Amabelle, who had lost so much, had a difficult time building such relationships and continued to struggle internally with the slaughter and the loss of her parents. Both constantly appear in her dreams. She states that, without Sebastian, "I regretted that we hadn't found more comfort in each other," referring to Yves.

In her old age, Amabelle has become forgetful and even fearful of forgetting important aspects of her life. In her dream about Sebastian in chapter 40, Amabelle states that "I sense that we no longer know the same words, no longer speak the same language. There is water, wind, land, and mountains between us, a shroud of silence, a curtain of fate." Amabelle continually has dreams about Sebastien, but here states that she no longer has that connection with him that she used to have in her dreams. She is becoming forgetful of the man she once loved, which at her old age can be due to some form of dementia or a defense mechanism.

Near the end of the novel, Amabelle listens to a tour guide discuss Henry I's citadel. "Famous men never truly die," he says, "It is only those nameless and faceless who vanish like smoke into the early morning air."You do not die if someone remembers your name, and Amabelle, after the massacre, attempts to remember the names of those that have perished. She wants to keep their stories alive, and if she forgets them she fears all of her stories will be like "a fish with no tail, a dress with no hem, a drop with no fall, a body in the sunlight with no shadow." She will remember names, and Sebastien's most of all. Amabelle's dreams are where Sebastien and her parents will be remembered most, while in reality she is struggling to keep their memories alive.

Once Amabelle visits Algeria, so much has changed that she is unable to recognize the land that she could have before the slaughter occurred. She is looking for Señora Valencia, but she travels to over two dozen different houses before finding the right one that was described to her. When Amabelle and Señora Valencia meet again, the Señora is unable to recognize Amabelle by her physical features, especially her voice. This surprises Amabelle, who must then give Señora Valencia specific examples of what had occurred in her life to get her to recognize her. The Señora finally believes her once she states the story of how Señor Pico found Amabelle near the stream, at which point she was taken in to be part of the family.

At the end of the story, when Amabelle reminisces about her parents, she states that "nature has no memory. And soon, perhaps, neither will I." Amabelle is afraid of losing the memory of her parents outside of her nightmares, especially with her old age. She fears the same thing regarding Sebastien. Amabelle seems to live in two separate worlds. One being in her dreams and nightmares where she is able to recall memories of her parents and Sebastien, and the other being in real life, where she is slowly losing the grip she had on the memories of her parents and Sebastien. It's a constant struggle for Amabelle to keep those memories alive, and it seems that with her old age her memories will just continue to fade.