Page 211 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

Regain an Agile Brain • 195

attack. The extent of damage inflicted on an individual de-
pends on the severity and location of the stroke, as well as
the speed with which you receive treatment. The term golden
hour was coined by Dr. R. Adams Cowley of the Maryland
Institute for Emergency Medical Services, who is regarded as
the pioneer of modern trauma care. Medical intervention
within the first hour after trauma is critical for increasing the
patient’s chance of survival. This hour, called the golden hour,
begins the moment the injury occurs. Very recent advances
may have increased this window of opportunity to three
hours. Nevertheless, if you think that you might be experi-
encing a stroke, seek help immediately. Do not delay. It is
better to be safe than sorry. The effects of a stroke can be min-
imized with immediate attention.
Remember the discussions in Chapter 2 of where the dif-
ferent brain functions are located? The long-term potential
for healing any damage caused by brain injury depends
largely on your age. At birth, for example, both hemispheres
seem to have potential for a language center. Based on ob-
servations of severely epileptic infants whose hemispheres
must be surgically severed, language still can be acquired
and handled in the right hemisphere. If severe damage oc-
curs to a mature brain, the right hemisphere may not be able
to accommodate speech other than an odd word here or
there.
An intriguing example of the left/right hemispheres is
the case of N.G., a homemaker whose corpus callosum had
been severed so that no communication from one hemi-
sphere to the other existed. Jean-Pierre Changeux describes
an experiment in which objects were presented to N.G. on a
split screen, so that what is presented in the left visual field
is seen only by the left eye, and what is presented in the
right visual field is seen by the right eye only. What the left
eye sees is transmitted to the right hemisphere of the brain,
and what the right eye sees is transmitted to the left hemi-
sphere of the brain. N.G. is left-brain dominant, and there-
fore her language and verbal capabilities are in the left
hemisphere.