Part 1: A Walking Tour Through the Brain

The brain is a remarkable organ. Seemingly without any effort, it allows us to carry out every element of our daily lives. It manages many of the body functions that happen without our knowledge or direction, such as breathing, blood circulation, and digestion. It also directs all the functions we carry out consciously. We can speak, move, see, remember, feel emotions, and make decisions because of the complicated mix of chemical and electrical processes that take place in our brains.

Our brains are made of nerve cells and lots of other cell types. Nerve cells are also called neurons. The neurons of all animals function in basically the same way, even though animals can be very different from each other. What sets people apart from other animals is the huge number of nerve cells we have in the cerebral cortex, regions of which are proportionally much larger in humans than in any other animals. These regions are the parts of the brain where cognitive functions, like thinking, learning, speaking, remembering, and making decisions, take place. The many interconnections among the nerve cells in these regions also make us different from other animals.

To understand Alzheimer's disease, it's important to know a bit about the brain. Part 1 of Unraveling the Mystery first gives an inside view of the normal brain, how it works, and what happens during aging. Then, it shows what happens to the brain in Alzheimer's and how the disease slowly destroys a person's mental and physical capacities.

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