Addressing Alzheimer’s with Art
Dr. Gladys Maestre,
leading neuroepidemiologist and professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine
Playground seesaws in flight. Colorful bandaids decorating scraped knees. Magic blooming from the mundane.
Within the hushed, solemn corridors of an Alzheimer’s research clinic, whimsical echoes of childhood, abandoned so early in life, are un-expectedly rekindled, thanks to a collection of porcelain dolls with ringlets, long lashes, and frilly dresses.
Dr. Gladys Maestre is tackling the Alzheimer’s epidemic in unconventional, even subversive, ways. The trailblazing neuroscientist and geneticist gives a vintage doll to everyone who participates in a federally funded study she directs in the Rio Grande Valley. “They don’t ask why,” she said. “It is something to hold, to care for.”
She also shows her patients art. She urges them to listen to music.
Art—broadly defined—is a linchpin in the fight against Alzheimer’s, critical to sparking eroding memory, boosting moods, and stimulating healthy brains, she believes. Humans must be immersed in color and music, history and beauty, she says. In her own clinic, she fought for a full year to paint off-white walls vibrant shades of red, yellow, and green – a battle she recently won.
“Art triggers associations that exercise your hippocampus. Colors and shapes impact your mood.”
Maestre herself grappled with memory loss following a 2018 car accident that caused a concussion and a loss of memory.
“For a while, I forgot my own autobiography,” she says. “I was scared. I didn’t want people to know. I thought they’d be angry with me. It gave me insights into how people navigate the world without being able to trust memory.”
Dancing helped her heal.
Microscopic image of Tao protein build up in the hippocampus region of a deceased Alzherimer’s patient. Courtesy of the Biggs institute.
Dr. Kevin Bieniek dissects a human brain at the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer's & Neurodegenerative Diseases in San Antonio, Texas. The only way to definitively diagnose Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias is with a postmortem autopsy of a patient’s brain.
I want less stress, more money in people’s pockets, better food, art in the street, all of it as support and stimulation for the brain.”
Her aspirations extend beyond the lab. She envisions medical researchers collecting data door-to-door in vulnerable neighborhoods over a decade or more.
