Dana Foundation Blog

International Brain Bee winner: In her own words

You know, for the newly proclaimed “world's best brain,” I don't really feel any different.

Sure, I now have a hefty prize, congratulations from my friends and family and something incredibly impressive to put on my college applications. But I'm not sure how I feel about being the high-school world champion in neuroscience. I suppose it would be relieved and surprised—relieved that the stress of the competition is over and that I did my absolute best, surprised that I even managed to get to the international finals in the first place. Heck, I didn't think I would win DC regionals. Me, a world champion? Little old me?

No, I don't think I had due confidence in myself at any level of the competition, especially since I first found out about the Brain Bee from Elena Perry, last year's international champion. She had watched the competition for the past two years and then spent a month making a thousand flash cards out of every question that could possibly be construed from the study materials.

But I figured it was worth a shot. I've loved neuroscience ever since I knew what it was, and here was a way I could demonstrate that passion to others, seeing as there's very little way to do so otherwise. One can't really create mouse models of schizophrenia for the school science fair. But I had no idea my love of all things brain would have such a payoff.

I feel a bit obligated here to explain how I got into brains in the first place. After all, it's not your average teenage hobby. I suppose the philosophical reason is that I value science as the most rational and complete form of knowledge, and I find the human mind the most mysterious and fascinating thing in existence, so a scientific way of describing the mind is pretty much the coolest thing ever.

A bunch of things are almost equally as cool, though, such as quantum physics and evolutionary biology, so I guess it's my nurture as well as my nature that caused me to choose neuroscience. My mom is a psychiatrist, and whenever I stopped by her office I was endlessly intrigued by her bookshelf and busied myself reading The Child's Conception of the World and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV. Also, in my tweenage years, I had discovered the writings of Oliver Sacks and loved his true-life stories; I would try to guess the disorders the patients were suffering from, look up the diseases online and even write my own stories where characters would suffer from the same problems. Even in childhood I gradually began to see every part of society around me in the light of neuroscience and found this view of the world much to my liking.

Thus I figured I'd put my neurological knowledge and good memory for facts to the test in the DC regional brain bee. I was just trying it out this year, I told myself, and if I didn't win I would try again seriously next year. To my shock, I managed to answer all but one of the questions in the local bee correctly.

Accepting my check with wonder, I realized I would have to really devote myself to cramming for the U.S. national competition a month later. This time, knowing that there would be neuroanatomy and patient diagnosis portions as well as simple factual questions, I decided to get to know the contest inside and out. To do this, I turned to the best local source of Brain Bee knowledge, one Elena Perry. I barraged her with questions on how the different rounds operated, what her secrets for success were, whether we needed to know all those tiny cranial nerves and how on earth one could diagnose neurological AIDS. Elena obligingly answered all my questions and even lent me her neuroscience textbook and plastic brain models, for which I am completely indebted to her.

As well as my personal knack for brains and Elena's help, I was armed with the total confidence of my family, who consider me their super genius child. Even my dad, who is rarely enthusiastic about anything, urged me on, telling me, “the only person that can defeat you is you.” So I approached the U.S. nationals with a lot of anxiety but faith that I stood a chance of winning if I did my best. I was comforted when I met the competitors from the other states—not that I felt better than them, but that they all were so friendly and good-spirited that the tension in the air was completely dispersed. Despite a few pitfalls during the competition—I was only in third place before the last round and had to calm my nerves with a dinner of shrimp pasta—I pulled ahead in the final lightning round (which greatly resembled the DC regional contest). In the glimmer of camera lights, trophies and relief, I accepted my laurels and beamed.

I had a few months to laze about and spent half my prize on video games before I was confronted with internationals. I worried that I had forgotten the information, or that I hadn't given myself enough time to study or that the other nations were taking this more seriously than I was. (Though I wasn't by any means flippant about it!) But this time I had more of a feeling that I could really do it. Sure enough, I stayed in the lead throughout and ended up winning by two points.

So here I am, tapping away at my computer amidst my mess of a desk, an international champion. I'm not sure what that means to me, and I'm even less sure what it means to you, dear reader. But I do know one thing: that it was a lot of fun getting here through simply indulging my passion for brains. To all who aspire to a similar path: good luck!

Julia Chartove, who will enter her senior year at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville, Md., this fall, won the D.C. Regional Brain Bee contest before placing first at the U.S. National and International Brain Bee contests.

Illuminating genius: insights from science and the arts

Nancy C. Andreasen

Guest blogger: At the recent Learning and the Brain Conference in Washington D.C., Nancy C. Andreasen, M.D., Ph.D., discussed the importance of providing students with a “liberal education” that combines the study the arts and the sciences. She asked: How important are the arts for optimal development of the mind and brain? How important are the sciences? And how important is it to integrate both in our educational programs?

Concerns have been raised about the failure to integrate education in the arts and sciences for many years. In the 1950s the British writer C. P. Snow expressed concern about overspecialization and the creation of “Two Cultures,” producing a situation in which educated people from diverse backgrounds in the arts and sciences could no longer communicate with one another: “This is serious for our creative, intellectual, and above all, our normal life.” More recently E. O. Wilson addressed the issue again, in his book Consilience, arguing that consilience is a groundwork of explanation that crosses all branches of learning; he believed that in an ideal world knowledge should be unified across the humanities and the sciences.

The arbitrary division of domains of knowledge and the quest for specialization is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the Renaissance, one of the great eras of exuberant creativity, people did not divide the world into art and science. Instead they saw them as a seamless continuum. Michelangelo was a sculptor, architect, painter, engineer, poet and anatomist. Leonardo was an inventor, painter, engineer, sculptor and anatomist. Great naturalists, such as Charles Darwin, made discoveries that we call “science” while trying to understand the beauty and order of the natural world. As one great naturalist, Konrad Lorenz, has said, “He who has seen the intimate beauty of nature must become either a poet or a naturalist and, if his eyes are good enough and his powers of observation sharp enough, he may well become both.” To the extent that our current educational system fails to integrate art and science, it fails in an important aspect of nurturing creativity in young people.

What is the nature of the creative process? Many introspective accounts from individuals as diverse as Mozart or Poincaré or Coleridge share a common theme. Creative ideas, insights and solutions tend to occur rapidly and spontaneously, as sudden flashes of insight, although they may be preceded by an incubation phase. They are most likely to arise while a person is daydreaming or relaxing or engaging in “free association”—a state called REST (Random Episodic Silent Thought) or the “default state” in imaging research studies. During this state, regions of the association cortex are especially active, reflecting the fact that mental connections are being tossed around chaotically—until an original idea sometimes emerges. This process reflects the highly complex nature of brain organization. The brain is able to spontaneously generate novel ideas and content because it can function as a self-organizing system (a concept from “chaos theory”), a system in which components spontaneously organize to produce something new in a nonlinear, dynamic and unpredictable way.

In the Iowa Study of Creative Genius, highly creative people from both the arts and the sciences are currently being studied using neuroimaging tools, personality and cognitive tests, and structured interviews. Although the study is still in its early stages, imaging findings suggest that artists and scientists share similar brain activity during tasks chosen to stimulate the association cortex—thereby perhaps demonstrating scientifically that the arts and the sciences are indeed a unity.

Dr. Andreasen, a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives, is the author of the Dana Press book The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius.

Avoiding Strokes

To mark Stroke Awareness Month, we invited Cleo Hutton (Striking Back at Stroke: A Doctor-Patient Journal and After a Stroke: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier) to impart some of the wisdom she shares with people who recently have had a stroke.

Striking Back at Stroke is as relevant today as it was when it was written. But there are a few additional facts that should be noted. I am a co-author and stroke survivor, and I just celebrated my 60^th birthday. I am rejoicing with my family and friends 17 years post-stroke. My children are grown and my daughters have families of their own. At the end of the book, I take a walk with my 4-year-old granddaughter, a granddaughter who is today 10 years old. Two more grandchildren have been born since the book was written and published. My journal is far from ended.

Stroke will still be a major part of my medical history as it is for hundreds of thousands of others. “Cleo” survived and thrived in spite of difficult circumstances, but “stroke” has not stopped. The incidence of stroke in the United States is still at astronomical figures. Every minute a person has a stroke and every three minutes someone dies of a stroke. What are you doing in your community to prevent stroke?

Know your risk factors. Know your numbers. Learn what your normal blood pressure is and keep the numbers within limits by eating healthy foods and supplementing with medication if prescribed by your physician. Learn your cholesterol numbers to keep plaque from forming in your bloodstream. Keep your heart and vascular system healthy. Exercise daily. You don’t have to spend money to walk around the block or garden or mow the lawn. Just increasing your heart rate slowly and slightly for 15 minutes per day will do a great service for your heart. It’s spring, so if you are overweight, get outside and do an activity that you enjoy. Your heart and brain will thank you.

Hemorrhagic strokes, bleeds within the brain or skull, are the most dangerous type but not the most prevalent. Ischemic strokes, a sudden halt of blood flow to areas within the brain, are the most common type and the type of stroke I had.

Not all strokes can be prevented, so know that pain is not the only warning sign. After 17 years of working closely with stroke centers, neurologists, rehabilitation facilities, peer-to-peer counseling, speaking at conferences and visiting families affected by stroke, I continue to be alarmed at the response of stroke survivors who are able to formulate the sentence, “I didn’t know” or “It didn’t hurt” or “All of a sudden …” All these statements are correct. Ischemic strokes do not hurt, as the brain does not feel pain. Hemorrhagic strokes can be excruciatingly painful as pressure can build up within the skull.

Normally, what brings us to the emergency room is pain. Pain is the way our body tells us something is amiss. But the warning signs of stroke do not involve pain. Our bodies will not shout out, in the usual way, that something is wrong and that we need immediate care. Instead, one side of our body may not respond the way we expect it to, it may become numb or weak, or we may stumble for no apparent reason, or our eyesight may become blocked on one side. These symptoms may last a few seconds to a few minutes. They are painless. But they can be deadly.

If there is stroke in your family history or you have diabetes, make sure your family is aware of the warning signs and signals of stroke. If you suspect stroke, don’t wait. Call 911 or your local emergency number. The faster stroke is diagnosed the faster it can be treated and the shorter the recovery time.

Stroke Awareness Month is near its end, but it’s not too late to help alert your community about stroke. Ask your local hospital for a speaker on stroke awareness for your community club or upcoming event. Request information from the National Stroke Association or the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association and give these vital facts to your neighbors or co-workers. Visit friends, family, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers or church/synagogue members who have had a stroke and extend your hand of friendship and understanding. Make this Stroke Awareness Month your inspiration to spring into action for yourself and your family. Being heart healthy, brain active and body strong are the keys to living a full life.

Thank you to all the readers of Striking Back at Stroke: A Doctor-Patient Journal. It is truly a pleasure to be with you.

—Cleo Hutton

In British Columbia, Brain Awareness Week features neuroethics

Guest blog by Judy Illes, Ph.D.

Do human beings shape their environment to shape their brains? Yes, argued Yale University’s Bruce Wexler, M.D., at this year’s Brain Awareness Week Lecture at the University of British Columbia (UBC). During his lecture at UBC’s Brain Research Centre on March 21, and earlier in the day at Vancouver General Hospital’s Neurology and Neurosciences Grand Rounds, Wexler explored this question by discussing the interface among neuroplasticity, the impact of the environment on neurodevelopment, and the interaction between internal schema (how we picture the world) and external stimuli through the aging process.

During his lecture Wexler argued that in early life, neural plasticity and our limited ability to act on our surroundings mean that our brains, and internal cognitive schema, have to adapt to match our external environment. Our perceptions and beliefs, including our notions of morality, are shaped during this time by sensory stimuli and reinforced by the associated neuronal activity. These processes are significantly influenced by our relationships with our parents, family members, caregivers, educators and others.

As we age, neuroplasticity diminishes while our ability to manipulate our surroundings increases. This reversal leads to increased sensitivity to stimuli that are consistent with our now-stable internal psychological structures and a devaluing of unfamiliar inputs. Despite our efforts to control our environment so that the sensory input from our environment and our rigid internal psychological structures match, there are times when we are unable to maintain this balance, for example during periods of bereavement or culture shock. These observations lead to what Wexler referred to as a “neurobiological antagonism to difference,” which, applied to society-wide phenomena, can partially explain the occurrence of conflicts between distinct social or cultural groups.

Wexler’s research provides perspective on the interactive dynamic between our plastic brains and social environment. How we conduct ourselves as moral human beings is greatly influenced by this process.

Judy Illes, Ph.D. is Canada Research Chair in Neuroethics and Professor of Neurology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. Dr. Illes also is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. This lecture was supported by the Dana Foundation.

[Also see another blog on the Brain Awareness Week discussions in Banff, “Communicating neuroethics in the age of Twitter”]

Big crowds for brain awareness in Houston

Guest blog by John H. Byrne, Ph.D., written Friday, March 20.

We are experiencing a great Brain Awareness time in Houston. Last night [March 19] the Neuroscience Research Center, in partnership with the John P. McGovern Museum of Health and Medical Science and volunteers from the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, put on a successful “Brain Night for Kids.” More than 330 children from the Houston Independent School District and their families were treated to demonstrations of the human brain, crash helmets, comparative anatomy and physical challenges, among others. The museum also had exciting exhibits on display that were enjoyed by all.

Houston’s Mayor, Bill White, had already declared March “Brain Awareness Month” in a salute to the hard-working scientists, clinicians and caretakers in the Greater Houston area. An enthusiastic crowd attended a public forum associated with Brain Awareness Week earlier in March on stroke and vascular disease. Houston has an ever-increasing number of activities associated with the Dana-sponsored Brain Awareness Week (BAW), and we are proud to be part of this educational outreach at all levels to the public.

This is my 14^th year of hosting BAW activities in Houston. In participating each year, I am reminded that the public, from the youngest to the oldest, have an enormous thirst for knowledge about the brain. It continues to be extremely gratifying to share with them what I have been fortunate to learn about the brain.

John H. Byrne, Ph.D., is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Dr. Byrne also is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.

Learning, Arts and the Brain: Sharing the latest findings

Guest blog by Michael Posner, Ph.D., who started Brain Awareness Week early by taking part in a lecture on Feb. 2 at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, part of Oregon Health and Science’s 2009 Brain Awareness Lecture Series. The session, as usual for the series, sold out the 800-seat theater. This is Oregon Health and Science’s 10th year celebrating Brain Awareness Week.

As a participant in the Arts and Cognition grant and report sponsored by the Dana Foundation, I was asked to be in a panel discussion on the subject for Brain Awareness Week 2009 in Portland. The panel was headed by John Frohnmayer, past Chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. Helen Neville and I represented that Cognition and the Arts studies and two major Oregon creative figures, Dan Wieden, founder and principal of the internationally known advertising firm, Wieden & Kennedy (“Just Do It!…Nike”) , and Chris Coleman, creative director for Portland Center Stage and passionate advocate for the arts.

The panel was lively, inventive, insightful and fascinating—both for all the participants and, we were told, by the audience as well. This type of interactive arts and science forum is unique and help foster more dialogue between researchers and the arts community. It seems to be the type of connection between the neurosciences and the arts that the Dana Foundation is encouraging…”growing brains and brain power” at the local level!

After the panel, a “creatives” reception was held with nearly 20 arts groups, who provided not only information but an opportunity for increased interaction. This novel approach is leading to an ongoing connection between the neuroscience outreach (Brain Awareness) program and the community of arts groups in the city and the state.

Michael Posner, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at the University of Oregon and adjunct professor of psychology in psychiatry at the Weill Medical College of Cornell, where he served as founding director of the Sackler Institute. Dr. Posner also is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.

‘It ain't Rocket Science,’ but it is *Rock-It Science*

update: See a video from the event at TheScientist.com

Guest blog by Joseph E. LeDoux, Ph.D.

On Tuesday, March 3, scientists who have alter egos as musicians will get together with rock stars at the Highline Ballroom in New York City for the Rock-It Science Festival. As a member of The Amygdaloids, an NYU-based band, I'm one of these scientists. Other scientific musicians include Pardis Sabetti and Thousand Days (Harvard), David Soldier and the Spinozas (Columbia), and Dan Levitin (McGill). The fabulous guest artists are Rufus Wainwright, Lenny Kaye (guitarist, Patti Smith Band), Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), The Kennedys, Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate), Gary Lucas (Gods and Monsters), Peter Holsapple (the dBs), and more.

The Amygdaloids play original music, mostly love songs, about mind and brain and mental disorders. Not everyone reads books, but almost everyone likes music. That’s why music is the ultimate communication tool. My goal in writing these songs is to put enough about the brain in each song to make the listener think, "Hey, that's kind of interesting." Then hopefully they will be motivated to pick up a book by me or some other brain scientist and find out more. We're looking forward to Rock-It Science since it will allow us to pretend to be real rockers for one night, but I have to admit, it's pretty daunting to think about being on stage with the folks we've lined up.

Rock-It Science is associated with a conference on emotion regulation called Sensation to Emotion. The conference will be held on Monday and Tuesday, March 2-3. Rock-It Science is being put on by Knock Out Noise, and sponsored in part by the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives in celebration of Brain Awareness Week.

The show starts at 6:30 on March 3 at the Highline Ballroom (431 W. 16th St., NYC). Tickets are $25 and are available at www.highlineballroom.com.

Joseph E. LeDoux, Ph.D., is a University Professor, Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science and a member of the Center for Neural Science and Department of Psychology at New York University. Dr. LeDoux also is a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives.

What the word stroke means to me

To mark Stroke Awareness Month, we invited Cleo Hutton (Striking Back at Stroke: A Doctor-Patient Journal and After a Stroke: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier) to impart some of the wisdom she shares with people who recently have had a stroke.

For me, a 16-year veteran of stroke, the word stroke has taken on meaning beyond the medical definition. The word also describes our new life after being sent home from the hospital, when we must move from patient to person again and face the realities of living with stroke.

For me, this definition of stroke includes:

Strength

Time

Rehabilitation

Opportunity

Knowledge

Environment

Strength equals empowerment, choice, enthusiasm and hope. You may at first feel powerless as your body tires easily. The words power, choice, enthusiasm and hope may feel empty, as if they are not a part of your vocabulary after a stroke. But your inner strength shows in the first choice you have to make—to accept that you have reached a “plateau” in healing or to gather the will to overcome this new obstacle. As stroke survivors, we may have known that life isn’t fair, but stroke has certainly driven the point home. We grieve. But what we do after that is our making or breaking. We don’t have to go through the recovery process all alone; we choose to have our loved ones surround us with support, boosting our strength, and we are grateful for their concern for us. We hang on to hope for a better tomorrow. We are enthusiastic over our accomplishments.

Time is necessary to heal, evaluate and learn. These three activities do not necessarily happen in this order, but tend to ebb and flow. We slowly begin to learn all we can about our particular stroke and the parts of the brain affected. In doing so, we determine our strategy of compensating and how to best use our stroke-affected side so that other areas of our brain begin to take on new adaptive roles. In time, we begin to learn that anger can be our friend. Sometimes we get so angry we learn to do a new task no matter how long it takes! It is anger’s cousin, rage, we want to stay away from. In time, we learn to be our own best advocate. In time, we realize our limitations while continually striving to improve.

Rehabilitation will be ongoing. When we begin to slowly return from patient to person we realize that physical therapy equals daily exercises we perform at home. Vocational therapy involves our daily tasks such as bathing, making the bed and preparing meals. Recreational therapy now involves getting out into the community again. Emotional therapy includes family intervention. In time, we realize that stroke has affected each family member and that it is our responsibility to support them as well. The rehabilitation methods we began learning in the hospital will last forever as we become skilled at adapting to a new lifestyle.

Opportunity! Sometimes we have to knock on many doors to make this happen. Change is difficult. Again, we have a choice: to look at life as a reason for depression or as an opportunity. Among the many challenges are opportunities for growth in our spiritual, educational and personal lives. We may choose the opportunity to slow down and enjoy every day. We may choose the opportunity to learn a new skill. It is in the challenges we face every day that we find opportunity to grow into an even better person than we where the day before. Rather than handicaps, we choose to view opportunities. We slowly begin to shift our focus away from our stoke deficits and toward our assets.

Knowledge helps us to adapt to different ways of performing tasks. Learn all you can about your particular stroke, what area of the brain was affected and its function. Knowledge also means that family dynamics require patience and understanding. Be kind to yourself and your loved ones. Relax, regroup and take one task at a time. However, be careful that your loved ones don’t smother you with good intentions! There are so many things we need to learn to do by ourselves.

Environment: Ours must be safe and uncluttered. Soon, we discover adaptive skills that assist us in working our body and our mind. For example, we learn how to safely test water temperature with our unaffected hand. We practice picking up coins from a table in order to get our affected fingers working again. We make sure that friendships fill our environment to help us heal.

Every facet of your life will change after stroke. It will be up to you to find your definition of stroke—your meaning of healing.

—Cleo Hutton

Shattering Stroke Myths

We asked Cleo Hutton, co-author of the Dana Press book Striking Back at Stroke and author of the Demos book After a Stroke: 300 Tips for Making Life Easier, what myths about stroke she hears the most.

Myth No. 1: Stroke strikes only the elderly.

Fact: Stroke can, and does, happen to anyone at any age—even children.

Myth No. 2: There is nothing that can be done if someone has a stroke.

Fact: Act quickly! Time is brain! Call 911. Many hospitals are equipped with stroke centers that quickly diagnose which type of stroke has occurred. Medication may be given to halt the progression of an ischemic stroke (caused by a blood clot or piece of cholesterol clogging vital blood vessels in the brain), but it must be done within three hours of the attack.

Myth No. 3: Stroke is a disease of the brain.

Fact: Stroke is not a disease but a condition that happens because of something else going on in the body. When a blood vessel bringing oxygen and nutrients to part of the brain becomes clogged or bursts, a stroke occurs.

Myth No. 4: There is nothing that can be done to prevent a stroke.

Fact: Stroke is preventable if we know the risk factors. Tell your physician if you have a family history of heart disease or stroke. As age increases, stroke risks also increase. Many risk factors are under our control: Diabetes, high blood pressure, high LDL cholesterol, increased weight, some medications and smoking. Know your numbers, know your risk factors and you will minimize your risk of stroke.

Myth No. 5: Stroke happens so fast! There are no warning signs.

Fact: Warning signs of a stroke or a temporary occurrence called a transient ischemic attack—which is itself a stroke warning sign—include:

1. Sudden weakness or numbness of the face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
2. Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
3. Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
4. Sudden trouble walking, dizziness, loss of balance or coordination

These are painless, sudden, intermittent symptoms. In addition, sudden, severe headaches with no known cause are a warning sign for hemorrhagic stroke.

Myth No. 6: Once a stroke has occurred, there is nothing you can do to improve.

Fact: Medication may help or, in the case of hemorrhagic stroke, surgery may be performed. Rehabilitation begins as soon as the person is medically stable. The brain has adaptability, called plasticity, that can override the stroke-affected area to a great extent. You may have residual effects of the stroke, but improvement is a daily journey.

—Cleo Hutton

Spotlight on malaria

As the mother of a toddler, I was stunned to learn just how many young children fall prey to severe malarial infection every day. How could a so-called preventable disease still have the ability to kill so many? And, just as important, why wasn’t such a public health crisis receiving more international attention?

So while doing my research for the Cerebrum article, “Cerebral Malaria: A Wily Foe,” I was pleased to hear about the headway being made in understanding the mechanisms underlying cerebral malaria by scientists and doctors around the world, such as Terrie E. Taylor, David Sullivan, Georges Grau, and Charles Newton. Their pioneering research is offering millions of children in Africa hope for future sustainable preventative measures and gaining much-needed world attention.

The May 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is a theme issue focused on malaria. Some of articles featured in the issue look at diagnostic methods, the lack of new drug approaches to combat resistant malarial infection, and the alarming finding by one of Dr. Newton’s colleagues that close to half of Kenyan children with severe malarial infection suffer from neurological impairment later in life.

Hopefully, with this raised awareness and understanding, this wily foe can be conquered – and quickly.

-- Kayt Sukel

Art for life

We received this letter in response to Janet Eilber's column in the January edition of Arts Education in the News and received the writer’s permission to post it here. —Dan Gordon

I recently read “Youth in Danger: Art Appeals to Life” in the Dana Foundation’s Arts Education in the News and wanted to share a story with you.

From 1995-1998, I evaluated an arts-in-education partnership between the Irondale Ensemble Project (an off-Broadway theatre company) and the New York State Department of Health (DOH). Briefly, company actors were sent to various sites throughout NYC to work with youth at high risk of contracting AIDS. This included half-way houses, residential drug treatment centers and a semi-boot camp, court-ordered alternative to jail. At the latter was a young teenager who fell in love with the Irondale program and acting.

The company fell in love with her and the quality of her work. They offered her an internship and later a paid position as a company member. After a time there, she decided she wanted to go to college. Irondale helped her pay for it, and she graduated.

Last week I was scheduled to observe some classes in another Irondale project I am currently assessing. The young woman in question had recently returned to the company and was scheduled to teach that day. However, she was not there. She had been cast in an episode of "Law and Order" and was shooting. I subsequently learned she had also recently been in the "Sopranos."

Back in 1998, as I was winding down my DOH study, I interviewed the woman. By then she was living on her own and was an Irondale intern. “Irondale saved my life,” she told me. “If it wasn’t for them, what would I be doing? Working in some restaurant kitchen and doing God knows what all else?”

Thanks for your article. It’s good to know the word is getting out. It’s good that you’re helping get it out.

All the best,

Stephen Yaffe

We received this letter in response to Janet Eilber's column in the January edition of Arts Education in the News and received the writer’s permission to post it here. —Dan Gordon

I recently read “Youth in Danger: Art Appeals to Life” in the Dana Foundation’s Arts Education in the News and wanted to share a story with you.

From 1995-1998, I evaluated an arts-in-education partnership between the Irondale Ensemble Project (an off-Broadway theatre company) and the New York State Department of Health (DOH). Briefly, company actors were sent to various sites throughout NYC to work with youth at high risk of contracting AIDS. This included half-way houses, residential drug treatment centers and a semi-boot camp, court-ordered alternative to jail. At the latter was a young teenager who fell in love with the Irondale program and acting.

The company fell in love with her and the quality of her work. They offered her an internship and later a paid position as a company member. After a time there, she decided she wanted to go to college. Irondale helped her pay for it, and she graduated.

Last week I was scheduled to observe some classes in another Irondale project I am currently assessing. The young woman in question had recently returned to the company and was scheduled to teach that day. However, she was not there. She had been cast in an episode of "Law and Order" and was shooting. I subsequently learned she had also recently been in the "Sopranos."

Back in 1998, as I was winding down my DOH study, I interviewed the woman. By then she was living on her own and was an Irondale intern. “Irondale saved my life,” she told me. “If it wasn’t for them, what would I be doing? Working in some restaurant kitchen and doing God knows what all else?”

Thanks for your article. It’s good to know the word is getting out. It’s good that you’re helping get it out.

All the best,

Stephen Yaffe