Can a Pill Make People With Down Syndrome Smarter?
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/can-a-pill-make-people-with-down-syndrome-smarter/
I chose to read an article and write my blog
post about the common disability, Down syndrome. I have always been really
fascinated about how a lack or partial lack of a chromosome can cause such a
difference in verbal and mental capacities. I believe that Down syndrome is a
more debilitating disability compared to autism because they do not have the
advanced ability to expand on topics and learn. I found an article in The New
York Times called “Can a Pill Make People with Down Syndrome Smarter?” We
discussed in class whether a “smart pill” really exists and research had shown
that there are in fact some medicines that can increase memory.
The drug that the article speaks about is
memantine, which is currently used to treat Alzheimer’s disease. Research had shown
that in mice there was an instant normalization in learning and remembering,
due to this pill. The results on human subjects showed a cognitive benefit of
memantine over the placebo subjects. The results were not strong enough for
many writers to believe that this study is worth continuing.
I’m really interested in reading how everyone
else feels about this article. I thought this was a fantastic road for research to go down and I really hope it is successful one day. I do not think that memantine is harming the research subjects so I personally feel as if it is worth government funding and continuing trials. Do you guys think that this would really be
possible for a pill to be created to help increase learning in humans with Down
syndrome? Is it worth the time and money to continue further testing and trials?
Kirsten Fulop
I think that this is very interesting. However, I am curious as to what "instant normalization" is referring to. What kind of learning is occurring in the mice? I would like to know if the mice are simply being conditioned or perhaps actually processing information. Learning requires neuronal connections to be made, so I am wondering if memantine is meant to improve the ability to create neuronal connections. Also, I'm not sure how chromosome work, but I'm wondering if missing a chromosome could affect the ability to make neuronal connections. In class we talked a lot about glial cells and how there is not much research on them. Maybe glial cells are able to aid in learning (the connections made between neurons). This is interesting, but I do not think that the government should more money into the research if there are not much significant results from prior research. But, then again, I'm sure that there have been many studies done previously where there were not significant results at first but ended up having very important results. Probably wouldn't be a bad idea for research to continue with this subject.
ReplyDeleteThere are generally no adverse effects of memantine so I don't see any ethical reason to stop testing. However, Down's Syndrome is the presence of an extra 21st chromosome so I am skeptical that any pill present on the market could make any measurable difference in the cognitive abilities of those affected with the syndrome. The problem here goes way beyond any chemical imbalances. I would be interested to see if some sort of preemptive gene therapy in the womb could be developed for future treatment of Down's Syndrome.
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