In this issue of Dementia & Neuropsychologia, Nunes and colleagues
present an interesting paper evaluating the effect of educational level on the
phenomenon of reduction of the asymmetry of processing by the cerebral hemispheres with
aging. An intriguing observation was that although no difference between individuals
with low or high educational level was seen on cognitive tests, differences were in
cerebral processing were evident on magnetoencephalography.[1] This group of researchers led by Alexandre
Castro-Caldas, of the University of Lisbon, Portugal, has been investigating the effects
of illiteracy and low educational level on the brain by means of more current and
sophisticated methods of analysis of the functional organization of the central nervous
system.In 1998, Castro-Caldas and colleagues in their already classic study, employed positron
emission tomography (PET) with statistical parametric mapping to evaluate the
differences between illiterates and non-illiterates on verbal tasks, and concluded that
the functional organization of the adult brain is modified by learning to read and write
in childhood. At the time the study was devised, PET was not available in Portugal, so
the authors had to seek support from the Karolinska Institute of Stockholm, Sweden,
where patients were flown to undergo the examination.[2] The relevance of taking advantage of more elaborate methods to
study hitherto less investigated phenomena, or those have been evaluated using only
clinical or conventional research methods, is one of the most important non explicit
contributions of this group of researchers and is reflected by the paper published in
this issue.The use of novel methods or models of study has been critical for the advance of science.
Indeed, it was the application of the silver impregnation methods, only recently
reported by Camilo Golgi at the time, that allowed Santiago Ramón y Cajal to go
on and produce what is probably the most seminal page on neurosciences ever written by
any one individual.[3] Within the sphere
of particular interest to Dementia & Neuropsychologia, it is apt to
remind that the modifications of the silver impregnation methods proposed by Max
Bielschowsky paved the way for Alois Alzheimer to describe the pathological hallmarks of
Alzheimer’s disease,[4] while it was the
very appropriate choice of Aplysia californica that made possible many
of the remarkable advances in mechanisms of memory achieved by Eric Kandel and his
team.[5]Numbering among the main motivations of Dementia & Neuropsychologia is
the publication of papers investigating the effects of education and cultural phenomena
on the central nervous system as well as studies on diseases that are more common in
developing countries than in developed regions. Methods are the essence of science and
new methods and models will certainly shed new and brighter light on these relatively
neglected fields.