BRAIN STUFF: A Look at Cognitive Acquisition and Maintenance, by Mynga Futrell | 2025-05-18 @2:00 PM

Sunday, May 18, 2025, 2 pm – 4 pm (doors open 1:45 pm)
Location: Reason Center, 1300 Ethan Way, Rm 675, Sacramento
Sponsored by Atheists and Other Freethinkers (AOF)

Mynga Futrell presents: A whole-life research model is behind this (non-medical) presentation on brain functioning. The model spans early-life “brain building” through late-life “cognition keeping.”
We will look at how some important nature/nurture factors of brain development, reserve, and plasticity come into play across a lifetime.

Let’s be frank. As of now, you are simply stuck with whatever conditions of brain development came your way as a child, factoring in how well you’ve maintained supportive elements of cognition in adulthood so far.

You may find your own brain occasionally letting you down, such as when you can’t recall someone’s name only five minutes after an introduction or know why you came into a room. Its performance in certain situations like that are likely not of any real consequence.

But of course, we do know about those dreaded neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, don’t we? (So now, we go back to sentence #1 above, and to the research model that deals with some key factors at play in both healthy brains
and suffering brains.)

Our speaker, Mynga, is co-founder of our AOF and The Brights, *the-brights.net*. Since 2001 she has been a volunteer on the Education and Programs/Services Committees of the regional Alzheimer’s Association. Since 2019, she has taught a semester-long seminar on dementia at the CSUS Renaissance Society.

– Event is open to the public.
– Free parking in the lot.
– OK to BYO snack/beverage — or to share if you wish.
-AOF will provide cool, clear water.
– Contact: *aofonline.org/contact*