Awakenings' in People With Advanced Dementia Hint at Untapped Brain Reserves

Several studies in Alzheimer's and Dementia examine the phenomenon of paradoxical lucidity, reports Scientific American . Paradoxical lucidity refers to surprisingly coherent moments of meaningful communication in dementia sufferers just before they die. "If the brain were able to access that normal state of clarity, even if it's transient, it would suggest that there's some requisite level of machinery that can work under some kind of unique circumstance," said the University of Michigan's George Mashour. "That prompts a reconsideration of whether or not at this late stage in the disease, even with known degeneration, there is some kind of functional configuration that the brain can achieve with what remains." The U.S. National Institute on Aging plans to underwrite related research next year, with the goal of formulating of an operational definition and gauging paradoxical lucidity's prevalence.