Nuns Donate Their Brains to Alzheimer's Research 148
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."
Re:Mental Capabilities? (Score:1, Insightful)
why not? might give insight into why people are drawn to specific topics... it also will be fairly good baseline since those in these orders will have documented and controlled diets, so will form a good base for comparing against each other at least.
Re:Mental Capabilities? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not? Like it or not, it is fairly normal to believe in religion.
Ummm Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Mental Capabilities? (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:What if they discover ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. Lot of caring people in this thread, who bash other peoples beliefs, while I'm sure they tout that they're very tolerant.
Let me know if your brainwave applies to MS as well. Two monasteries around here have members who donate.
Oh come on people, stop bashing the old biddies. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.)
As someone who has worked with Religious Folk. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Results will be useless (Score:3, Insightful)
Doh. That, of course, should be "choir boys". :-P
I consider myself a radical athiest... (Score:3, Insightful)
But seriously guys, you are going way, way out there in this nun hate.
Re:Mental Capabilities? (Score:3, Insightful)
Fuck you.
No, seriously: Fuck You.
Just one of these women does more real, genuine capital 'G' Good in a week than a land-fill of snarky Internet tough guys like you will do in your entire life.
Re:Results will be useless (Score:4, Insightful)
If you start picking and choosing, you have to prove that your sample matches the general population FIRST.
Nonsense. They study Alzheimers in nuns, period. If they find something that's interesting regardless of whether it is specific to nuns or not. If they come up with a treatment in nuns, they can then apply it to the general population and see whether it works. They don't need to show that anything matches the general population "FIRST". Heck, we do tons of medical research in mice, and they certainly don't match the general population.
Re:As someone who has worked with Religious Folk. (Score:1, Insightful)
"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."
Thank you jellomizer for saying this. It is astonishing to me that such an obvious statement even needs saying, but, apparently it does. Actually I can't imagine why traditional dress should "fool" anyone into assuming the wearer is uneducated or unintelligent. Perhaps I give people too much credit.
Pam
http://www.talksocialnews.com
Re:Results will be useless (Score:3, Insightful)
You must be new here
Re:As someone who has worked with Religious Folk. (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand, success in the scientific fields can be directly correlated with religiosity - those who do the best work and contribute the most to our understanding of the universe are FAR less likely to be religious than their more mediocre counterparts.
That's a rather ignorant assertion. The Scientific Method has nothing to do with a person's religious faith. But since you want to dabble in stereotypes, there may indeed be a coorelation between 'lost soul' spiritually hollow types who never make it off campus and adopt a permanent long-term career in 'science.'
Nobody's saying they're the best scientists, however. Many of them are placeholders.
Re:What if they discover ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, it is possible to scorn religion without scorning the religious. ... Same for religion. You can bash irrational beliefs in magic sky dictators, while still loving and befriending the people who suffer under such beliefs. That's why they call it "tolerance" and not "blind acceptance".
Odd. You've just successfully argued against yourself, by bashing what a person believes in but saying it's all okay, here have hugs and cookies, and saying by the way, your beliefs suck. Tolerance is about not stepping on someones toes, or disagreeing with what they believe in while not stating that they 'suffer' from something.