Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer's Research

Many Catholic religious orders are participating in a long range Alzheimer's disease study. Rush University's Religious Orders Study began in 1993 and tracks the participants' mental abilities through yearly memory testing. In addition to the annual tests, the study subjects agree to donate their brains. From the article: "The researchers sought members of religious orders, hoping they would be willing to donate and would not have children or spouses interfering with that arrangement at the last minute. More than 1,100 nuns, priests and brothers across the country representing a wide range of ethnic groups are taking part."

Comments

An Elaborate Scheme

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice trie, zombie scum! Your little charade won't fool me, you want this grey matter you've got to work for it. NO FREEBIES!

They heard

[MrTripps]

The nuns heard that helping science was a good habit to get into.

Ummm Yes

[DevConcepts]

Given that the environmental structure is common to all persons at the location, it should remove some of the variables that exist and allow researchers to focus on the changes over time with regards to the disease itself rather than the differences that would be experienced with a geographical larger study.

Re:Ummm Yes

[PyroMosh]

WNYC's Radiolab did a very similar story involved nuns donating their brains to Alzheimer's research. It was the University of Minnesota though, so it may also have been a different group of nuns.:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127211884

Basicly, you are right. They Nuns were a good choice because (as they put it):

Snowdon wanted to look at aging over time, and decided to focus on sisters because they all had fairly similar histories and backgrounds. Most of them joined the School Sisters of Notre Dame congregation when they were 18, and all had abstained from smoking or drinking. So Snowdon signed up 678 sisters, all over the age of 75, from the order. All of the sisters agreed to donate a small part of their brains to the study after they died.

The study looked at writing as an indicator of Alzheimer's risk. And they chanced upon a jackpot - all the sisters in the study had essays that they had written at 18 or 19, roughly 70 years earlier.

Do yourself a favor and listen to that episode, or at least read the transcript.

Re:Mental Capabilities?

[flaming error]

Why your question? Perhaps you are not a fan of religion in general, or catholicism in particular? Like the rest of us, they probably believe every religion they don't belong to is misguided.

Unlike the rest of us, they have made the extraordinary decision to dedicate their lives completely to the service of others. If somehow a bias for altruism sneaks into some neurologic baseline, perhaps DSM-V will someday list greed as a psychosis. No other problems seem obvious to me.

I doubt monastic brains are hardwired for superstition any more than those of the general population. Of those slashdotters who believe that we are visited by extra-terrestrials, how many came to that conclusion based on the forensic evidence and proven physics?

Oh come on people, stop bashing the old biddies.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is their decision to stay in a religiously themed communal housing structure any different (from the standpoint of the cultural norm) from your decision to avoid sunlight and social interactions, and to live in your mother's basement collecting manga, video game paraphernalia, and a super huge collection of raunchy porn locked away on an encrypted filesystem?

These people are motivated by their religious precepts to help other people, and believe in a spiritual afterlife. As such, they are less concerned about what happens to their bodies after they die than some other people, and more concerned about how they can continue helping people after they are gone (at least the ones that aren't pedophile priests anyway). Their brains get Alzheimers just like everyone elses, and such a huge turnout (over 1000 individuals in the study, for something that requires you to donate your brain, is a pretty huge turnout) means that there is a considerable chance that significant findings could be obtained through the study. That kind of thing alone merits some form of hat tipping.

Why is everybody poking fun that they are all celibate, instead of praising them for their altruism in this respect? I mean, it's not like the average slashdot reader gets busy every friday night in his mother's basement you know. (no, Palmula Handerson and a bottle of Jergins doesn't count.)

Re:Mental Capabilities?

[Again]

Why not? Like it or not, it is fairly normal to believe in religion.

I don't think that has anything to do with it. I remember reading elsewhere that nuns are ideal test subjects for longitudinal studies because the affect of a lot of independent variables can be eliminated or reduced when compared to people who have a more normal lifestyle.

As someone who has worked with Religious Folk.

[jellomizer]

As someone with religious tolerance and have actually have worked with catholic Priests, Nuns, Monks, Bishops, etc... A lot of these people are Smart and have PHD and MDs in many areas of science and often with other areas of study as well. Don't let the traditional dress fool you, these people are actually well educated with sharp minds.

Just because you don't agree with their religion or religion in general, don't let yourself think for a second that these people are any less then you.

These nuns provide an important service to AD res

[WillAffleckUW]

The reality is that nuns are a very good group of subjects, since they not only donate their brains after death - which is essential in determining AD status, but we have full medical histories on them for many decades.

None of our current studies focus on religion. The major risk factors are genetic and linked to diet and lifestyle.

Thanks for helping, sisters!