To improve memory, synapse connections must be strengthened. Brainpaths patented medical devices use repeated and persistent stimulation of the sensory cortex and surrounding areas of the brain, by repeatedly tracing injected plastic textures in Brainpaths devices with one or more fingertips, to increase and strengthen synapse connections. A synapse between two neurons is strengthened when the neurons on either side of the synapse (input and output) have highly correlated outputs. When activities wire repeatedly, neurons fire: neurons that fire together, wire together (1949 Donald Hebb).

Wiring the brain: “Synapse additions” are not only sensitive to experience, but are actually driven by experience. The role of experience is essential for not only increasing the initial wiring of the brain during childhood but continues to increase the overall functioning of the brain during an entire lifetime. Learning serves to add synapses throughout the brain. Tracing Brainpaths also provides a fine motor skills exercise for motor control and dexterity, involving small muscles in fingers and hands, needed for writing, grasping small objects, and fastening clothing.

At birth, the human brain is in a remarkably unfinished state. Most of its 100 billion neurons are not yet connected in networks. Forming and reinforcing these connections are key tasks of early brain development. In the first decade of life, a child’s brain forms trillions of connections or synapses. The role of experience for the child is to expand the child’s early wiring diagram necessary for effective cognitive as well as neurological development during early childhood and beyond. Brainpaths provides a method for to children concentrate and focus as they trace the pathways, strengthening synapse connections.

 IMPROVE YOUR BRAIN: FIRE & WIRE NEURONS

There are steps that can be taken today to improve the lives of individuals suffering from memory loss, Dementia, and Alzheimer’s, tracing Brainpaths devices for 20 minutes each day to fire and wire neurons. Tracing injected plastic textures on a Brainpaths device provides repeated and persistent strokes to indent into 3000 mechanoreceptors, located under skin of all 10 fingertips. Repeated and persistent tracing of Brainpaths pathways incorporates Eric Kandel’s Hebbian tracking: repeated and persistent tracing exercise to fire and wire neurons in the brain, necessary for strengthening synapse connections that have been destroyed by Amyloid plaque in the brain, causing synapse connections to be destroyed, resulting memory loss.

This methodology can begin today and continue as a brain-healthy daily exercise, while ongoing research studies are performed on Brainpaths that will outline new uses and devices to provide repeated and persistent exercises to fire and wire neurons in the brain to improve memory. Further, Brainpaths can be used for all ages: a healthy daily exercise for young children as the brain develops in early years, and continue as an exercise for healthy adults maintaining a healthy brain, free of disease.

Brainpaths is also desperately needed for individuals with conditions other than Dementia and Alzheimer’s, such as Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Post Traumatic Stress and Traumatic Brain Injury. Join us on this exciting journey to make a difference in the lives of individuals with a healthy brain, as well as those suffering from all stages of brain disease, in an effort to keep the brain healthy and free of disease.

DEVICES

Brainpaths devices have pathways injected into plastic that allowing fingertips to indent into 3000 mechanoreceptors in each fingertip to fire and wire neurons in the brain. Persistent repetition of this tracing exercise strengthens synapse connections to improve memory. Stimulating the brain on a regular basis allows the brain to establish strong connections between neurons, increase memory, improve cognitive abilities and relieve stress, necessary for areas of learning that require focus, concentration and memory. As an added bonus, Brainpaths repetitive fingertip tracing provides a fine motor skills activity. Brainpaths has a USPTO Utility patent that provides ‘tactile touch’ in a concentrated, deliberate manner, using fingertips, the most stimulating part of the human body.

Each fingertip has more than 3,000 touch receptors that respond primarily to pressure. These are packed in just under the surface of the skin, where each reports events in overlapping fields about one-tenth of an inch across. The entire trunk, by contrast, has about as many touch receptors as a single hand. When you touch something, indenting into 3000 mechanoreceptors repeatedly and persistently, neurons fire in the brain: neurons that fire together, wire together forming neural networks that can work together.

Take the simplest possible example–you are stroking your finger across a rather large A, which is raised as in braille and recognize it as A, with no peeking. As you stroke the letter, the skin is indented as it passes over the A. That causes several hundred neurons to fire, each one reporting pressure as the letter passes through its neural field (Handy Guide to Touch & Coding Sensory Information, Johns Hopkins Magazine, April 2005.)

SKIN IS AN EXTENSION OF THE BRAIN

Persistent Repetition forms Connections. The effects of tactile stimulation on the structure of the brain can be appreciated by understanding that the skin is almost an extension of the brain, formed as it is from the same layer of tissue during the embryonic stage of life (Taylor, 1979:136). (Biosociology: An Emerging Pradigm, Anthony Walsh,1995)

A new study suggests there might be some truth to the use-it-or-lose-it hypothesis. The cells and connections that are used will survive and flourish, firing and wiring neurons while cells and connections that are not used will wither and die (Dr. Jay Giedd MD, frontline interviews, PBS)