DALLAS: Researchers have learned that mimicry may be a useful tool to help them regain lost abilities.
“Alzheimer’s patients are still able to voluntarily imitate the movement of an object, as well as that of a human being,” said Dr. Ambra Bisio, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Experimental Medicine at the University of Genoa. “If this ability is still in place, a patient could relearn how to perform actions that have become difficult due to the disease.”
Bisio, who specializes in how the brain responds to movement, particularly somebody else’s movements, collaborated with Professor Thierry Pozzo at INSERM-U1093 to show that Alzheimer’s patients can still mimic a simple gesture by a human or a moving dot on a computer screen.