MIT News: Unique visual stimulations may be the treatment for Alzheimer's
This article demonstrates how there has recently been a new development in curing Alzheimer's disease. There have been a few methods that they have found varied success in, but they all involve strobing lights at specific frequencies to stimulate particular areas of the brain using 'Gamma stimulation'. The biggest takeaway is that this is, first and foremost, a treatment rather than a preventative measure since many preventative measures can already reduce a patient's chance of receiving the disease. The second benefit is that the treatment doesn't involve any form of the patient taking any substances; instead, the lights stimulate the brain. However, this method would then exclude those sensitive to these forms of light (although you have people who are also allergic to medication, so there's never this "one cures all" method). While this is excellent progress, there have yet to be any human trials using this method; they have only tested this using mice. It'll be interesting to see if it will still work when testing on humans. However, based on the article reading, it seems safe to trial on humans.Key Takeaways
- - There's a new method for treating Alzheimer's
- - Uses strobing lights at specific frequencies to stimulate the brain
- - Currently only testing on mice
How well would this work for those who do suffer from light sensitivity?
Affective resonance
This was a lot more challenging (and technical read) than the other article. However, the main idea that the author (Rainer Mühlhoff) conveyed was the idea that affective resonance is something that affects something else to put it into a different state, and in some cases, this can become a loop with object A affected object B, which then affects object A and so and so on. However, the author focuses on how it affects individuals in this article. It doesn't have to be explicitly things that happen right in front of them. If they experience something within the digital world (or the "social medium", as the author puts it), that can also have an affective resonance on them. By experiencing these reactions through this medium, a more extensive range of individuals experience it. Still, the actual response will generally remain the same (however, the more significant the range, the more chance that cultural differences will create a different resonance).Key Takeaways
- - Affective resonance is when something reacts to something else
- - Can loop back on each other and continuously react back and forth
- - Resonance can occur through social mediums, just has a larger range
How much would the resonance of something change depending on the cultural context of the reciever?