About memory loss and music

[Andrew Schulman]

I've taken a question Kevin Taylor asked me in another thread and started a new thread as the topic gets more specific about the issues of memory and memory loss:

****

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 1:44:17 PM UTC-5, ktaylor wrote:
> Was the hippocampus destroyed or just damaged? Where there any measurements taken before or after?
>

Damaged. If it had been destroyed of course there would have been no recovery. Since you are interested and several others here have expressed interest, here is an excerpt from my book that addresses your question:

****************

"Later, in speaking with neurologist and music and the brain expert Dr. Mark Jude Tramo, I found out what had most likely happened to my brain. The doctors in the SICU didn't take brain scans as they fought to save my life - both sides of my body were moving which indicated no catastrophic damage and they had other issues to deal with - so Tramo could only surmise.

His view was that the cardiac arrest followed by seventeen minutes in ischemia had caused enough of a shortage of oxygen to my brain that I'd suffered bilateral hippocampal damage, a fairly common result from hypoxia - oxygen starvation. The hippocampus, a horseshoe-shaped area of the brain found in both hemispheres, is part of the limbic system, a system associated with memory and emotions. The hippocampus itself is involved in the processes of forming, organizing and storing memories, and researchers at the University of Magdeburg and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) recently located, using highly accurate MRI technology, the generation of human memories in specific neuronal layers within the hippocampus and the adjacent entorhinal cortex.

Bilateral damage to the hippocampus - as in my case - is likely therefore to affect memory function, and Tramo believed I'd experienced both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. For me, anterograde amnesia affected my ability to memorize new music (generate new memories) after my recovery, and retrograde amnesia meant I couldn't remember how to play the music I'd memorized before I went into cardiac arrest.

It is interesting that my amnesia affected only my musical memory. I was able to form new memories, both autobiographical and factual, outside of music memorization and I didn't seem to have any difficulties in recalling memories from my past. I was very lucky. There are studies about patients with terrible cases of anterograde amnesia, the most famous being that of a patient known widely as HM (Henry Molaison). In 1953, a surgeon removed part of twenty-seven year old HM's brain, including both his hippocampi, to treat him for severe epilepsy - the treatment worked but left him with severe anterograde amnesia. He was unable to form new memories of any kind for the rest of his life (he died in 2008), and described his condition, saying, "Every day is alone in itself, whatever enjoyment I've had, and whatever sorrow I've had... It's like waking from a dream."
According to Dr. McMillen, "Brain damage caused by lack of oxygen will often target the part of the brain used most." For someone like me, who'd been memorizing music and playing from memory for the last fifty years, the hippocampus was clearly my Achilles heel.

Surprisingly, - and fortunately - there was no inability to remember how to read music and play the guitar. And there were those six pieces I could still play from memory - all learned before the age of twenty. I was an example of what doctors call "a fascinoma", or in layperson's language, an interesting case.

"You hadn't lost the complex skills needed to play familiar music," said Tramo "as long as you had written music to guide you via brain connections integrating the work of visual neurons in the occipital lobe with the work of neurons in the frontal and parietal lobes that carry out the motor, kinesthetic, and spatial processes needed to perform the piece. Yet when you tried to access memories of familiar music stored in hippocampal neurons in the medial temporal lobes, they were gone, unreadable, and/or inaccessible to motor, kinesthetic, and spatial neurons."

It was as if the file cabinet where I stored the scores of memorized music I had performed for years was now empty. Or the path to that file cabinet was blocked. Empty or blocked? Didn't matter.

As for those six pieces I could still play from memory, Tramo explained, "Ribot's Law, hypothesized in 1881 by Théodule Ribot, states that there is a time gradient in retrograde amnesia. In your case, the closer you learned the piece to the time of your clinical death, the more likely you were to lose it."

When I mentioned that I'd learned all the pieces before I was twenty and I'd always played them on a regular basis he added, "What you're saying is not "science", not "data". But, for researchers like me, it's valuable information. Only you know the timing of what you learned."

I continued to use the survival philosophy I had created in the SICU. Be one hundred percent reality-based one hundred percent of the time. The reality? I couldn't play from memory anymore or memorize new pieces no matter how hard I tried. But, I could still make music. Eventually I ceased all efforts to relearn from memory and stoically accepted my fate. The silver lining of clinical death was quite useful for coping with this loss: I could play, I could read, I wasn't dead.

- From: http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Spirit-Musicians-Journey-Healing-ebook/dp/B00MELYIFG

About Dr. Mark Jude Tramo: http://www.brainmusic.org/BoardPage/Board.html
Dr. Marvin McMillen, mentioned in the fourth paragraph, was the Director of the SICU when I was a patient, allowed me to return as a musician although I had no training in music therapy, and is now my partner in developing the specialty of medical musician. He wrote the Afterword to my book. He is currently director of perioperative services at Berkshire Medical Center where I am doing a five month residency, going there the last week of each month to introduce medical music there. We will start doing workshops to teach this, possibly as soon as this summer. BMC is a few minutes away from Tanglewood.

Andrew

[John Nguyen]

" I could play, I could read, I wasn't dead." Man, this counts a lot! Glad to have you alive and kicking, Andrew!
Cheers,

John

[ktaylor]

Thanks, Andrew. I almost didn't see the thread.

So you can memorize music now. And what about the tunes you learned within that amnesiac window that you had forgotten? Are they back? If so, did they have to be completely relearned or did a little work unlock the entire piece?

Kevin

[dsi1]

It seems there are separate parts of the brain that facilitates speech and singing. There have been cases of people losing their ability to speak through head injury or stroke and still retain their ability to sing. It's quite an amazing, inspiring, and hopeful, thing to see someone that is partially paralyzed and unable to talk but can still sing beautifully. I can't say if there's something analogous with playing the guitar though.

[Andrew Schulman]

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 4:52:33 PM UTC-5, ktaylor wrote:
> So you can memorize music now. And what about the tunes you learned within that amnesiac window that you had forgotten? Are they back? If so, did they have to be completely relearned or did a little work unlock the entire piece?
>
> Kevin

Kevin, we are in the post-writing, pre-release stage of the book. We just had our first big publicity meeting last week. (Writing is HARD, post-writing meetings are FUN.) I've always used the RMCG to practice certain things, like not to get into prolonged fights with trolls (took a long time to learn that) so I'll use this opportunity now to answer some questions with excerpts from the book, as in - book promotion! This small section answers your final question about the difference in memorizing before and after. It's from Chapter 15: The Memory of All That.

"The next day I awoke to a strange sensation in my head. It literally felt as if my brain was tingling. On a whim I took out my favorite Bach fugue, the so-called Fiddle Fugue, a six-minute piece that I couldn't play in public because it is so long and a guitarist can't turn pages with one hand like a pianist can. I sat down and started playing the compact opening theme, four repeated notes that blossom into a complex and ingenious piece of music.
Fifty-five minutes later, every note of this great work of art was back in my memory. I could play it all the way through without the printed page, which I did three times in a row. I was absolutely flabbergasted, and completely bewildered. I had never before been able to memorize something that difficult in that short a time. And when I closed my eyes I didn't see a blank piece of paper. I saw the notes, just like I used to before I lost my memory. Could it be true? Did I dare hope that the damage had finally healed?"

The short answer as to why I could memorize so much faster has to do with neuroplasticity, which Dr. Norman Doidge, who you mentioned earlier, explains so well in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself. My publisher was on the team that put that book out and it was the first thing he asked me to read when I got my book deal: http://www.normandoidge.com/?page_id=1259

The laymen's answer about why I could memorize so much faster was that when the damage occurred my brain created a workaround so I could read and play, although the memory function was too badly damaged to play from memory. Once those damaged neural networks were repaired and online again (again, much faster than otherwise would have happened because I returned to play in the SICU which provided the three most important things: 1) Repetition-3X/week, 90 minutes a session, 2) Intensity-playing in a room of life and death, 3) A focus on helping others so I never got frustrated with my own progress) the brain did not discard the workaround. It got blended in. That's why the neuroscientists in the book say I got Music Brain 2.0.

I estimate that from the time of the healing, October 2011, until about January 2014 when I began full-time writing of the book, I'd regained 8 of the approximate 12 hours of memorized music that had been locked up. It was very easy to add things back, and a lot of fun to memorize pieces I'd never memorized before. Once I started writing the book in early 2014 my music practice work was on the back burner. I haven't done what I call real practicing in about 18 months. To my surprise, I didn't have trouble playing even very difficult pieces as time progressed because although I wasn't practicing I was playing a lot. But I know I'm going to have to rememorize a lot again.

The first music project I have in front of me is to record a lot of the music mentioned in the book, for example, in the section above where I describe playing the Fiddle Fugue (BWV 1001 which I've arranged incorporating a lot from the organ version). The reader will be able to hear the piece as they read that chapter.

Andrew

[Andrew Schulman]

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 3:26:04 PM UTC-5, John Nguyen wrote:
> " I could play, I could read, I wasn't dead." Man, this counts a lot! Glad to have you alive and kicking, Andrew!
> Cheers,
>
> John

Thanks, John! I actually had a lot of people ask if it was devastating when I learned I'd had so much damage. My answer was always, "Clinical death provides a great silver lining to everything, the alternative is a lot worse."

Andrew

[Andrew Schulman]

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 5:42:42 PM UTC-5, dsi1 wrote:
> It seems there are separate parts of the brain that facilitates speech and singing. There have been cases of people losing their ability to speak through head injury or stroke and still retain their ability to sing. It's quite an amazing, inspiring, and hopeful, thing to see someone that is partially paralyzed and unable to talk but can still sing beautifully. I can't say if there's something analogous with playing the guitar though.

The way they got Congresswoman Gabby Giffords to talk again was by getting her to sing first. The brain is very complex, to say the least. This film shows how music reaches through to alzheimer patients: http://www.aliveinside.us/#trailer

Andrew

[ktaylor]

Andrew,

I've read Doidge's first book, too, thanks to Greg's urging.

So it seems to me the damage wasn't done to the memories, per se, but to the recall mechanism. You had to rebuild the road to the memories, but not the memories, themselves. Once unlocked, they were there. Part of the neural network was damaged but not all. You created other keys to unlock the stored memories.

Do you think that's accurate?

Kevin

[Andrew Schulman]

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 7:31:02 PM UTC-5, ktaylor wrote:
> I've read Doidge's first book, too, thanks to Greg's urging.
>
> So it seems to me the damage wasn't done to the memories, per se, but to the recall mechanism. You had to rebuild the road to the memories, but not the memories, themselves. Once unlocked, they were there. Part of the neural network was damaged but not all. You created other keys to unlock the stored memories.
>
> Do you think that's accurate?
>
> Kevin

That's mostly correct except the last sentence. The other keys created, the workaround as it's called, facilitated two things, muscle memory - I could get my fingers to the right place at the right time but it took almost a year to get back to where it had been before, and the connections between sight and recognizing the symbols, reading the notes, was also facilitated from the beginning. This is the story opening Chapter 5, the day I got home from the hospital:

"The second I was home, I knew exactly where I wanted to go. My guitar was on its stand in a corner of the living room near the front window, and I went straight to it--slowly, leaning on Wendy's arm. It weighed less than four pounds, but when I picked it up it felt more like forty. A Bach Sarabande, a slow movement from the Second Lute Suite, was on my music stand, a new arrangement I'd done intending it to be the first thing I'd work on when we returned home. A perfect, albeit unplanned, choice--the opening melody is nearly identical to the final chorus of the St. Matthew Passion.

Within seconds of sounding the first note, I understood what a terrible toll twelve days in the hospital had taken. I felt like a five-year-old who'd just started taking lessons. The slightest movement of my fingers took a huge effort, and even reading the notes on the page was difficult. Within a minute, an intense headache throbbed on the left side of my head. The pain and effort didn't matter though. I desperately needed to play again.

I plowed on and made it through to the end without stopping. It felt incredibly good to make music, but what would have normally taken me five minutes took fifteen. I put down the guitar, exhausted. But relieved. In the back of my mind I had worried all this time about neurological impairment--that my brain wouldn't be up to the intricacies of reading the score or moving my fingers. But I was lucky. I could still play the guitar! With time and practice, I would be back to my old self and able to get back to work again. I ambled the few yards to the sofa, collapsed onto it, and slept."

What follows is that the next day I tried to play from memory, including pieces I'd played for over thirty years, and I couldn't get past a measure or so without blanking. With some pieces I couldn't even get the first measure. That is the aspect of the damage that needed two years of rehab, the rehab I didn't even realize I was doing, when I returned to the SICU. I will say that in some pieces it was just unlocking the file, in others I had to really start from scratch but even so it went fast.

By the way, at the request of my publisher Dr. Doidge just read the book. He has multiple deadlines at the moment but said he hopes to write a blurb later. We just got our first three blurbs, two from authors and one from a musician. As I said, this is the fun part now. Including having a chance to explain things in these threads. Thanks for your questions.

Andrew

[ktaylor]

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 8:10:29 PM UTC-6, Andrew Schulman wrote:
I will say that in some pieces it was just unlocking the file, in others I had to really start from scratch but even so it went fast.
>

Thanks, Andrew. Interesting to me.

That statement above interests me the most - as I suspect it might you, too. Think about a piece you knew that you had to "start from scratch but went fast." Why do you think it went fast?

I want the book.

Kevin

[dsi1]

I did not know this about Giffords. I have seen the movie - I'm glad there has been some interest in people with dementia.

[Andrew Schulman]

The workaround my brain had created in the beginning wasn't discarded, it was folded into the neural network that was damaged. It's like getting an upgrade to your computer processor. This is from Chapter 15, Dr. Connie Tomaino was the the co-founder with Dr. Oliver Sacks of the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function http://musictherapy.imnf.org and is currently the Executive Director.

In the first sentence I say she confirms what a friend had told me, which is what I just mentioned above about the brain not discarding a workaround. She goes on from there about some of the other things I mentioned.

************
"She confirmed everything that my friend the surgeon had deduced about my neurological situation. I mentioned to her that I'd never bothered seeing a neurologist because I had thought brain damage was permanent. She laughed.

"Lucky you didn't," she said, "because they probably would have told you that you couldn't do what you did!" She went on: "You didn't forget any of that music, it was just that the connections, the nerve networks, had been badly damaged. And as luck, or fate, or whatever it was would have it, playing in the SICU was the most perfect rehab you could ever have had. It had all the right ingredients: repetition, you were there three days a week, intensity--nothing could have been more intense for you than playing in a SICU, a room of life and death where you yourself almost died--and a focus on healing others and not yourself. You never had to judge your own progress and so never risked getting frustrated to the point where you might have quit. If you hadn't gone back to the SICU your brain might still have healed and the music memory might have returned but it would have taken years longer, at least five to ten in my experience. However, in my opinion, and I've seen many cases like this over the years, if you hadn't played in the SICU it is very likely that you would have quit music altogether in the first year out of sheer frustration."

Tomaino loved the Music Brain 2.0 computer analogy. "Sure, by helping to heal others you defragged your hard drive!"
********

The book is a personal narrative with science reportage interweaving throughout. I tell the anecdotal stories and I have quite a few experts in neuroscience, medicine, psychology, music therapy, and music who bring in the hard science or expertise of their area. We didn't want a book with just me doing the research (although I did have to research and study every detail) because why should the reader believe a guitar player with no formal training in science or medicine about such highly technical matters? The central patient story is mine but it's surrounded by about ten other patient stories, the people I played for when I returned.

I put this link up before but since you say you want the book I'll put it up again because there is a pre-order sale at Amazon with big savings. This is an act of friendship, that sale means I'm making less in royalties!

http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Spirit-Musicians-Journey-Healing-ebook/dp/B00MELYIFG

Andrew

[Andrew Schulman]

On Monday, February 15, 2016 at 12:39:04 AM UTC-5, dsi1 wrote:
> I did not know this about Giffords. I have seen the movie - I'm glad there has been some interest in people with dementia.

Occasionally I play in nursing homes as a favor for friends with relatives there. You go into a large room with all of them in wheel chairs, slumped over, silent. Start playing any famous tune from the the 20s-50s and they all lift their heads and start singing. It's amazing.

The reason for this is that nothing activates the brain more than music. This has been proven with fMRIs. According to Dr. Sacks, we now know there are between 15 and 20 centers for music in the brain. Several are adjacent to centers for memory and emotion. Voila!

Andrew

[dsi1]

This happens frequently when people with a big hearing loss gets fitted
with hearing aids. It is as if they are awakened from a coma. It's a
wonderful thing to see.

[Andrew Schulman]

I like the analogy.

Andrew

[I. M. Rowin]

I haven't seen anyone mention seeing the last episode of "Nova" on PBS.
Fascinating stuff related to how memory works. You can watch online:

Memory Hackers
http://www.pbs.org/video/2365663085/

I. M.

"Andrew Schulman" wrote in message
news:dbf6801b-90a4-4823...@googlegroups.com...

[Andrew Schulman]

On Tuesday, February 16, 2016 at 4:58:17 PM UTC-5, I. M. Rowin wrote:
> I haven't seen anyone mention seeing the last episode of "Nova" on PBS.
> Fascinating stuff related to how memory works. You can watch online:
>
> Memory Hackers
> http://www.pbs.org/video/2365663085/
>
> I. M.
>

I don't remember seeing this one.

Haha! Going to watch it tonight, thanks for adding it to the thread.

Andrew

[dsi1]

Hopefully, you'll remember it when you see it this time. :)

My memory problem is that I'm going to be putting myself in a position
that will require me to acquire and memorize other people's name on a
regular basis. I pretty much know all the tricks for remembering
people's name but that don't really help me in my advanced state of
mental decomposition. What I've come up with it to carry a small
notebook and when I get introduced to people, I'll whip it out and start
writing while simultaneously blurting out something about having short
term. Yeah, that's the ticket...

[Matt Faunce]

When you do that make sure you tell them "Don't worry, I'm not with the
NSA. Really, I'm not."

--
Matt

[Matt Faunce]

Oh, wait! Like Columbo! Damn, I'm slow.

--
Matt

[dsi1]

I tried doing mnemonic trick for remembering names but the only names I
can remember is Mr. Hugh Jass and Eileen and Ben Dover.

[Curmudgeon]

An old guy was telling a friend about a memory improvement class he'd taken. His friend asked what the name of the course was. The guy replied "OK - here's an example. I associate the memory with a word that I can recall, such as 'rose." Then he called out to his wife in the other room, "Hey, Rose, what was the name of that course I took?"

[Matt Faunce]

Did you try Kevin Trudeau's Mega Memory system?

--
Matt

[Andrew Schulman]

On Wednesday, February 17, 2016 at 6:17:01 PM UTC-5, Curmudgeon wrote:
> An old guy was telling a friend about a memory improvement class he'd taken. His friend asked what the name of the course was. The guy replied "OK - here's an example. I associate the memory with a word that I can recall, such as 'rose." Then he called out to his wife in the other room, "Hey, Rose, what was the name of that course I took?"

Good one. My problem is I forget my wife's name, but I can remember the melody.

Andrew

[dsi1]

I have not. My guess it's the standard memory tricks repackaged and infomercialed. What I'm looking for is a memory system that requires no hard work on my part. A mega memory pill would be great.

[Curmudgeon]

Try rose

[dsi1]

My wife's name isn't rose so I can't try that one. What I need is a pet parrot to sit on me shoulder and can give a heads up when he sees people we know approaching. That would be just peachy. My guess is that nobody would think a parrot on my shoulder would be strange since I wear an eye patch and a funny hat anyway.

[Curmudgeon]

Arrrgh!

[dsi1]

...he said as he fell down the mine shaft!

[Steve Freides]

I'm sorry - what were we talking about?

-S-

[Matt Faunce]

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Kevin Trudeau for making fraudulent
claims about his product, viz., the claim that people can gain a
photographic memory using the Mega Memory System. How is that not the same
category of claim, viz., fraudulent, that Learnwell makes about the
efficacy of the methods he advocates? Of course it's not illegal unless his
fraud is tagged to the product he's selling. I wonder how he pitches his
lessons to potential students, current students whom he wants to continue,
and their parents.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/1998/01/informercial-marketers-settle-ftc-charges

"In fact, the FTC alleges, the memory system would not enable users to
achieve a photographic memory, and the advertising claims were false."

--
Matt

[dsi1]

Forget it Matt, it's Guitartown.

[LowHertz]

This is strangely related.

If I learn a song by ear, I can easily memorize it.

If I learn a song or piece by reading it, I can read it a thousand times,
try and try and I can't memorize it.

I wonder why the huge difference?

What does it mean?

[Matt Faunce]

When learning by ear you're making a subconscious effort to stick it in
your mind, whereas when you read it you're subconsciously telling yourself
that it's not important to stick it on your mind because you can just read
it if you want to play it again. So you'll have to try and try differently.


Try singing one voice while reading it then immediately singing it again
without the music. Sing it many times without the sheet music. The next day
you might have to refer to the sheet again, but less than before. Of
course, take it in manageable chunks. And do this to all voices.

To make it stick really good follow these steps. Of course, as always, take
it in manageable chunks, e.g., one measure at a time, or one phrase at a
time.

1. While reading, sing the bass voice while playing all voices. Repeat this
a few times, then do it without reading.
2. While reading, sing the treble voice while playing all voices. Repeat
this a few times, then do it without reading.
3. While reading, sing the bass voice while playing the treble voice only.
Repeat this a few times, then do it without reading.
4. While reading, sing the treble voice while playing the bass voice only.
Repeat this a few times, then do it without reading.

Nadia Boulanger had her students sing one voice while playing the other.
But I added steps 1&2 as a way to work up to that.
--
Matt

[Andrew Schulman]

On Friday, February 19, 2016 at 4:50:05 PM UTC-5, dsi1 wrote:
> Forget it Matt, it's Guitartown.

Good one, David. I'm thinking Jack Nicholson at this very moment.

Andrew

[Andrew Schulman]

It's like banking, you made a direct deposit.

Andrew

[David Raleigh Arnold]

On Sun, 14 Feb 2016 11:29:52 -0800 (PST)
Andrew Schulman <and...@abacaproductions.com> wrote:

> I've taken a question Kevin Taylor asked me in another ...
...as soon as this summer. BMC is a few minutes away from Tanglewood.
>
> Andrew

There are two very newly discovered experimental
facts about memory. 1,) The formation of new
memories has been actually watched in the appearance of new
connections between neurons, and 2,) memories are
completely wiped and rewritten every time that they are remembered.
An eidetic memory appears to be a failure to wipe.
In the normal person memory is selective.

PTSI is routinely cured by selectively destroying "fibers"
with anesthetic in an accessible part of the brain,
but with my focal dystonia I'm out of luck. So are
you, maybe, but it may be useful to know that
forgetting is built into the process of remembering.
Regards, Rale

[Andrew Schulman]

On Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 3:27:29 PM UTC-5, daveA wrote:
> There are two very newly discovered experimental
> facts about memory. 1,) The formation of new
> memories has been actually watched in the appearance of new
> connections between neurons, and 2,) memories are
> completely wiped and rewritten every time that they are remembered.
> An eidetic memory appears to be a failure to wipe.
> In the normal person memory is selective.
>

Dave, I'm continuing to do research even though I've finished writing the book because I'll be doing book tours for months after the release. Would you list your sources for this, I'd like to read them. I mention something similar to your first statement in my book, I think I posted it somewhere in this thread but I don't remember (!).

> PTSI is routinely cured by selectively destroying "fibers"
> with anesthetic in an accessible part of the brain,
> but with my focal dystonia I'm out of luck. So are

> you, maybe, but it may be useful to know that.

I don't understand what you mean about out of luck for me. I had a complete recovery from the brain damage and actually had an increase in neurological function with music. Also, I didn't suffer from PTSI. Please explain what you mean.

> forgetting is built into the process of remembering.

This article is old but refers to what you just wrote:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/05/health/psychology/05forg.html?_r=0

Andrew

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 2/21/2016 4:46 PM, Andrew Schulman wrote:
>>
> Dave, I'm continuing to do research even though I've finished writing the book because I'll be doing book

tours for months after the release. Would you list your sources for
this, I'd like to read them. I mention

something similar to your first statement in my book, I think I posted
it somewhere in this thread but I don't

remember (!).
>
>> PTSI is routinely cured by selectively destroying "fibers"
>> with anesthetic in an accessible part of the brain,
>> but with my focal dystonia I'm out of luck. So are
>> you, maybe, but it may be useful to know that.
>
> I don't understand what you mean about out of luck for me. I had a complete recovery from the brain damage and

actually had an increase in neurological function with music. Also, I
didn't suffer from PTSI. Please explain what you mean.

Voos iz "PTSI"? Google isn't helping.

Steve

[Matt Faunce]

Steven Bornfeld <dentalt...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> On 2/21/2016 4:46 PM, Andrew Schulman wrote:
>>>
>> Dave, I'm continuing to do research even though I've finished writing
>> the book because I'll be doing book
>
> tours for months after the release. Would you list your sources for
> this, I'd like to read them. I mention
>
> something similar to your first statement in my book, I think I posted
> it somewhere in this thread but I don't
>
> remember (!).
>>
>>> PTSI is routinely cured by selectively destroying "fibers"
>>> with anesthetic in an accessible part of the brain,
>>> but with my focal dystonia I'm out of luck. So are
>>> you, maybe, but it may be useful to know that.
>>
>> I don't understand what you mean about out of luck for me. I had a
>> complete recovery from the brain damage and
>
> actually had an increase in neurological function with music. Also, I
> didn't suffer from PTSI. Please explain what you mean.
>
> Voos iz "PTSI"? Google isn't helping.
>

Post traumatic stress injury. "Injury" replaced "disorder".
--
Matt

[Andrew Schulman]

On Monday, February 22, 2016 at 3:34:39 PM UTC-5, Matt Faunce wrote:

I don't have PTSI, I have PTSI. Pre traumatic stress injury. I like to stress out BEFORE the event, it's more efficient that way.

Andrew

[Matt Faunce]

Andrew Schulman <and...@abacaproductions.com> wrote:
> On Sunday, February 21, 2016 at 3:27:29 PM UTC-5, daveA wrote:
>> There are two very newly discovered experimental
>> facts about memory. 1,) The formation of new
>> memories has been actually watched in the appearance of new
>> connections between neurons, and 2,) memories are
>> completely wiped and rewritten every time that they are remembered.
>> An eidetic memory appears to be a failure to wipe.
>> In the normal person memory is selective.
>>
> Dave, I'm continuing to do research even though I've finished writing the
> book because I'll be doing book tours for months after the release. Would
> you list your sources for this, I'd like to read them. I mention
> something similar to your first statement in my book, I think I posted it
> somewhere in this thread but I don't remember (!).
>
>> PTSI is routinely cured by selectively destroying "fibers"
>> with anesthetic in an accessible part of the brain,
>> but with my focal dystonia I'm out of luck. So are
>> you, maybe, but it may be useful to know that.
>
> I don't understand what you mean about out of luck for me. I had a
> complete recovery from the brain damage and actually had an increase in
> neurological function with music. Also, I didn't suffer from PTSI. Please
> explain what you mean.
>

It would've made sense if he had said,

< PTSI is routinely cured by selectively destroying "fibers" with
anesthetic in an accessible part of the brain, but with my focal dystonia

I'm out of luck. So [would you probably be if you needed such treatment,
because in your case, with certain functions being performed in new places,
they might not know exactly which fibers to destroy] but it may be useful
to know that. >

--
Matt

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 2/22/2016 3:31 PM, Matt Faunce wrote:
>>
>
> Post traumatic stress injury. "Injury" replaced "disorder".
>

I had no idea that the specific areas and neural pathways had been
located--but using the word "injury" instead of "disorder" does imply
that the neuroscientists know exactly what they're looking for.

[Matt Faunce]

I'm sure it gets you moving, like on stopping those developers.

I'm a nervous wreck on stage when giving recitals. But I'm cool as a
cucumber up until just after I play the first note. BTW, my solution is to
not care about what the critics think: just single out anybody in the
audience that you know are understanding people (I really mean 'true music
lovers: those who are looking for and affected by positive qualities of the
music and don't care so much about mistakes,) and play for them. Or just
believe that there is someone in the audience like that and play for him.

And you're right about nerves and memory being two separate issues (that
is, not necessarily linked.) My nemesis is Rumores de la Caleta, because
that's one I messed up badly in a recital early in my career. Ever since
then, as I approach the 'falsetta' section where I screwed up, my hands
will start shaking. The issue (for performing that piece) was never a lack
of confidence in my memory, but confidence in my technique for one specific
move. And the problem isn't even technical anymore but psychological.

Back when it was still technically difficult for me, but within reach,
Michael Chapdelaine suggested that I play a different transcription of
it---a very perspicacious suggestion; but I won't do that because I believe
that the one I play, by Julian Byzantine, is vastly superior to all others,
besides I refuse to be beat by a psychological hangup. (This refusing is
probably, in itself, another psychological hangup. I tend to layer 'em up
nice and thick.)
--
Matt

[Learnwell]

> The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued Kevin Trudeau for making fraudulent
> claims about his product, viz., the claim that people can gain a
> photographic memory using the Mega Memory System. How is that not the same
> category of claim, viz., fraudulent, that Learnwell makes about the
> efficacy of the methods he advocates? Of course it's not illegal unless his
> fraud is tagged to the product he's selling. I wonder how he pitches his
> lessons to potential students, current students whom he wants to continue,
> and their parents.

Typical Delusional Usenet

[Andrew Ohren]

On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 11:29:56 AM UTC-8, Andrew Schulman wrote:
> I've taken a question Kevin Taylor asked me in another thread and started a new thread as the topic gets more specific about the issues of memory and memory loss:
>
> ****
>
> On Sunday, February 14, 2016 at 1:44:17 PM UTC-5, ktaylor wrote:
> > Was the hippocampus destroyed or just damaged? Where there any measurements taken before or after?
> >
>
> Damaged. If it had been destroyed of course there would have been no recovery. Since you are interested and several others here have expressed interest, here is an excerpt from my book that addresses your question:
>
> ****************
>
> "Later, in speaking with neurologist and music and the brain expert Dr. Mark Jude Tramo, I found out what had most likely happened to my brain. The doctors in the SICU didn't take brain scans as they fought to save my life - both sides of my body were moving which indicated no catastrophic damage and they had other issues to deal with - so Tramo could only surmise.
>
> His view was that the cardiac arrest followed by seventeen minutes in ischemia had caused enough of a shortage of oxygen to my brain that I'd suffered bilateral hippocampal damage, a fairly common result from hypoxia - oxygen starvation. The hippocampus, a horseshoe-shaped area of the brain found in both hemispheres, is part of the limbic system, a system associated with memory and emotions. The hippocampus itself is involved in the processes of forming, organizing and storing memories, and researchers at the University of Magdeburg and the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) recently located, using highly accurate MRI technology, the generation of human memories in specific neuronal layers within the hippocampus and the adjacent entorhinal cortex.
>
> Bilateral damage to the hippocampus - as in my case - is likely therefore to affect memory function, and Tramo believed I'd experienced both anterograde and retrograde amnesia. For me, anterograde amnesia affected my ability to memorize new music (generate new memories) after my recovery, and retrograde amnesia meant I couldn't remember how to play the music I'd memorized before I went into cardiac arrest.
>
> It is interesting that my amnesia affected only my musical memory. I was able to form new memories, both autobiographical and factual, outside of music memorization and I didn't seem to have any difficulties in recalling memories from my past. I was very lucky. There are studies about patients with terrible cases of anterograde amnesia, the most famous being that of a patient known widely as HM (Henry Molaison). In 1953, a surgeon removed part of twenty-seven year old HM's brain, including both his hippocampi, to treat him for severe epilepsy - the treatment worked but left him with severe anterograde amnesia. He was unable to form new memories of any kind for the rest of his life (he died in 2008), and described his condition, saying, "Every day is alone in itself, whatever enjoyment I've had, and whatever sorrow I've had... It's like waking from a dream."
> According to Dr. McMillen, "Brain damage caused by lack of oxygen will often target the part of the brain used most." For someone like me, who'd been memorizing music and playing from memory for the last fifty years, the hippocampus was clearly my Achilles heel.
>
> Surprisingly, - and fortunately - there was no inability to remember how to read music and play the guitar. And there were those six pieces I could still play from memory - all learned before the age of twenty. I was an example of what doctors call "a fascinoma", or in layperson's language, an interesting case.
>
> "You hadn't lost the complex skills needed to play familiar music," said Tramo "as long as you had written music to guide you via brain connections integrating the work of visual neurons in the occipital lobe with the work of neurons in the frontal and parietal lobes that carry out the motor, kinesthetic, and spatial processes needed to perform the piece. Yet when you tried to access memories of familiar music stored in hippocampal neurons in the medial temporal lobes, they were gone, unreadable, and/or inaccessible to motor, kinesthetic, and spatial neurons."
>
> It was as if the file cabinet where I stored the scores of memorized music I had performed for years was now empty. Or the path to that file cabinet was blocked. Empty or blocked? Didn't matter.
>
> As for those six pieces I could still play from memory, Tramo explained, "Ribot's Law, hypothesized in 1881 by Théodule Ribot, states that there is a time gradient in retrograde amnesia. In your case, the closer you learned the piece to the time of your clinical death, the more likely you were to lose it."
>
> When I mentioned that I'd learned all the pieces before I was twenty and I'd always played them on a regular basis he added, "What you're saying is not "science", not "data". But, for researchers like me, it's valuable information. Only you know the timing of what you learned."
>
> I continued to use the survival philosophy I had created in the SICU. Be one hundred percent reality-based one hundred percent of the time. The reality? I couldn't play from memory anymore or memorize new pieces no matter how hard I tried. But, I could still make music. Eventually I ceased all efforts to relearn from memory and stoically accepted my fate. The silver lining of clinical death was quite useful for coping with this loss: I could play, I could read, I wasn't dead.
>
> - From: http://www.amazon.com/Waking-Spirit-Musicians-Journey-Healing-ebook/dp/B00MELYIFG
>
> About Dr. Mark Jude Tramo: http://www.brainmusic.org/BoardPage/Board.html
> Dr. Marvin McMillen, mentioned in the fourth paragraph, was the Director of the SICU when I was a patient, allowed me to return as a musician although I had no training in music therapy, and is now my partner in developing the specialty of medical musician. He wrote the Afterword to my book. He is currently director of perioperative services at Berkshire Medical Center where I am doing a five month residency, going there the last week of each month to introduce medical music there. We will start doing workshops to teach this, possibly as soon as this summer. BMC is a few minutes away from Tanglewood.
>
> Andrew

This helps me to understand a strange phenomenon. I used to accept drinks while performing and quickly learned that I shouldn't try to play anything I'd learned after age twenty five while intoxicated. This actually seemed very strange because a lot of the pieces I learned more recently are really easy while the older pieces are actually much more difficult. The impairment caused by intoxicants does not seem to affect those songs I learned many years ago anywhere near as much a songs I learned more recently. Those I will start to forget and fumble on after the first drink. Still there where pieces I learned in my teens and early twenties that I could pull of totally plastered.

[Steven Bornfeld]

On 2/29/2016 6:09 PM, Andrew Ohren wrote:
>
> This helps me to understand a strange phenomenon. I used to accept drinks while performing and quickly learned

that I shouldn't try to play anything I'd learned after age twenty five
while intoxicated. This actually seemed

very strange because a lot of the pieces I learned more recently are
really easy while the older pieces are actually

much more difficult. The impairment caused by intoxicants does not
seem to affect those songs I learned many years

ago anywhere near as much a songs I learned more recently. Those I
will start to forget and fumble on after the

first drink. Still there where pieces I learned in my teens and early
twenties that I could pull of totally plastered.
>

That suggests any number of interesting lines of investigational research.

Steve