Randy Buckner Quotations

We appear to use memory systems often in our default states. This may help us to plan and solve problems. Maybe it helps us be creative. But it may also have metabolic consequences.

The regions of the brain we tend to use in our default state when we are young are very similar to the regions where plaques form in older people with Alzheimer's disease.

The default activity patterns of the brain may, over many years, augment a metabolic- or activity-dependent cascade that participates in Alzheimer's disease pathology. The regions of the brain we tend to use in our default state when we are young are very similar to the regions where plaques form in older people with Alzheimer's disease. This is quite a remarkable convergence that we did not expect.

We've been surprised to find out how malleable the brain is.

It suggests a new hypothesis and opens an avenue in exploration. By no means is it definitive.

It may be the normal cognitive function of the brain that leads to Alzheimer's later in life. This was not a relationship we had even considered.

The implication, albeit a speculative one, is that those activity patterns in young adults are the foothold onto which Alzheimer's disease forms.