MC Hammer heaps praise on Trinity College researcher for radical Alzheimer’s breakthrough
The “U Can’t Touch This” hitmaker was reacting to the new discovery by a research team at Trinity College Dublin on Alzheimer’s disease
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Rapper MC Hammer has applauded Irish researchers for their groundbreaking breakthrough in their study of Alzheimer’s disease.
The “U Can’t Touch This” hitmaker hailed the new discovery by a research team at Trinity College Dublin that showed forgetting can be a form of learning as “great work”. The 61-year-old rap legend, who spends his time online sharing news of various scientific advancements, tweeted to the lead author of the study, Dr Tomas Ryan: “Congratulations, great work.”
Dr Ryan said that the research supported the idea that forgetting may be a functional feature of the brain, allowing it to interact with a dynamic environment. He believes these findings will have a major impact on fighting a number of diseases including Alzheimer’s.
He explained: “Memories are stored in ensembles of neurons called engram cells and successful recall of these memories involves the reactivation of these ensembles. By logical extension, forgetting occurs when engram cells cannot be reactivated.
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“However, it is increasingly becoming clear that the memories themselves are still there, but the specific ensembles are not activated and so the memory is not recalled. It’s as if the memories are stored in a safe but you can’t remember the code to use.
Alzheimer’s disease is a brain disorder that destroys memory and thinking skills and eventually leaves the person affected unable to perform even the simplest tasks. The condition is named after Alois Alzheimer, the doctor who first noticed changes in the brain tissue of a woman who had died of an unusual mental illness.
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