Influence of Irisin in Patients with Memory Deficit
About Caroline Cunha
Caroline is a Junior-year student at American Heritage School in Delray Beach, Florida. Having lived most of her life in Brazil, where she was born, at the age of 16, she had to leave her country in search of better conditions and safety. After having discovered her aunt had Alzheimer's disease, Caroline committed to learning five languages before she turned 18, so she would be constantly able to make new neural connections and exercise her brain. Now, at 17, she moves a step ahead, and begins her path on not only attempting to change her lifestyle in order to avoid memory deficits, but also other people's.
Education
Grades 10 -12: American Heritage School at Boca/Delray
Grade 10: Colegio Podion in Brasilia
Grade 09: Colegio Olimpo in Brasilia
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Abstract
Influence of the Hormone Irisin in Patients with Memory Deficit
Since the discovery of the Irisin hormone by Harvard Medical School in 2012 scientists have been working on its functions and benefits to human health. According to a recent research performed in rats and developed by the neuroscientist Fernanda de Felice at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil, this newly-found hormone - related to the protein FNDC5 and to the performance of physical activity - might be associated to the reduction of memory and learning deficits, common symptoms of Alzheimer's disease. Thus, in order to find support to this hypothesis, this experiment focuses on gathering the data of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease from neurological clinics, and by separating the studied patients into different categories - including amount of exercise performed weekly, and concentration of the irisin hormone in the blood -, be able to prove the efficiency of physical activity and increased levels of Irish in the combat of memory deficiencies. If the clinical cases of the patients are separated according to this criteria, and a great majority of the patients is proven to have had positive results in their treatment when long-term exercise practitioners or recently initiated athletes (in contrast with sedentaries), then this data would auxiliate in further applications and researches to find correct amounts of exercise or hormone production that would viabilize the engineering of biomedical medicaments or prescriptions to hinder symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease or even memory loss related to the aging process.
