Before I start, here's a little intro.

This project explores neural transmission in the brain, how it changes with age, and the potential role of technology in managing neurological diseases. Neural transmission allows the brain to process thought, movement, memory, and sensation. As people age or develop neurological diseases, this system becomes less effective. This project investigates why that happens and whether technology can help.

Throughout my project, I made several changes to the way I research and the scope of my research to better account for time.

Initially, I wanted to research neurological diseases as a whole. However, after realizing it was way too ambitious, with teacher feedback, I narrowed it down to something much more manageable.

Question:

How are neural transmissions in the brain affected with age? Can these effects be mitigated with technology?

My goals for this project included:

• Discover the causes of two of the most common and deadly neurological diseases, Alzheimer’s Disease (generalized to dementia), and Parkinson’s Disease.
• Learn how the brain and thought work, including how neurons are formed and how they transmit information.
• See how these diseases are treated and managed currently
• Discover potential solutions/treatments for these diseases, using technology and electricity as outlined in my hypothesis.

Hypothesis:

If controlled electrical stimulation is introduced into the brains of people with dementia, new neural pathways can form, as it can simulate ‘forced thought’, leading to bond formation. These bonds can result in thought being processed at the same or similar speeds as before the diagnosis.

Project Phases

I decided to divide my research into 3 phases, those being:

1. the brain
2. common diseases and their causes
3. potential solutions

I’ll also be going over each phase individually.

Phase 1: The Brain

What is the brain?

• The brain is the control center of your body.
• It manages emotions, thoughts, and actions.
• It forms the central nervous system (CNS), along with the spinal cord.
• Made up of 60% fat, 40% water, protein, carbs, and salts.
• Contains blood vessels and glial cells.

What are the parts of the brain?

The brain can be divided into 3 major parts: the cerebrum, cerebellum, and medulla (brainstem). See Fig. 1.

• Cerebrum: comprises grey matter (cerebral cortex) and white matter. The largest part of the brain. The cerebrum is responsible for important functions such as movement, temperature regulation, speech, thought, and perception of our senses.
  • Cerebral Cortex: The outer grey matter shell that is half the brain’s total weight. Covered with gyri and sulci (ridges and folds). Each side controls the opposite side of the body - the more dominant side’s opposite becomes our dominant hand. The center sulcus of the brain is called the interhemispheric figure, which joins these halves. The corpus callosum allows for communication between these halves, and it’s located in the center of the cerebrum.
• Medulla Oblongata (Brainstem): Connects the cerebrum with the spinal cord. Formed of the midbrain, pons, and medulla.
  • Midbrain: Contains neuron clusters and pathways. Facilitates hearing, movement, responses, and environmental changes. Contains the Substantia Nigra, an area affected by Parkinson’s Disease. The Substantia Nigra is rich in dopamine and part of the basal ganglia, which facilitates movement and coordination.
  • Pons: Origin for 4 out of the 12 cranial nerves. These nerves enable functions such as tear production, chewing, blinking, vision, balance, hearing, and facial expression. Connects the midbrain and the medulla.
  • Medulla: where the brain and spinal cord meet. Regulates heart rhythm, breathing, and reflexes like sneezing and coughing.
• Cerebellum: A ‘mini-brain’, it also has hemispheres and an inner and outer portion, like the cerebrum and cerebrum cortex, respectively. It communicates with the cerebrum cortex and maintains posture, equilibrium and balance, through voluntary, reflex-like muscle movements.

Brain Lobes

See Fig. 2.

• Each hemisphere of the cerebrum is formed of 4 lobes- each of which controls different functions of the body. Lobes are simply areas of the brain, and contain other structures within them.
• Frontal Lobe: The largest lobe of the brain. Involved in personality, decision-making and movement. Also responsible for portions of smell and speech.
• Parietal lobe: The middle part of the brain. Responsible for spatial awareness, touch perception and pain perception. Also helps with hearing and the ability to perceive speech
• Occipital lobe: Back part of the brain, responsible for vision, depth perception and colour perception.
• Temporal lobe: responsible for memory, speech, musical perception, and portions of smell recognition.

Other brain structures

See Figures 3 and 4.

• Pituitary gland: A small structure responsible for the flow of hormones from the thyroid and adrenal glands, as well as the sexual organs.
• Hypothalamus: Sends chemical messages to the pituitary gland to control it, as well as regulating body temperature, sleep, hunger, thirst, and memory/emotion.
• Amygdala: Regulates emotion, memory, and instincts (fight-or-flight).
• Hippocampus: Responsible for memory, learning, and spatial awareness. Works with the cerebral cortex.
• Ventricles: open areas of the brain - labelled in the above image. Produce cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that cushions the brain and spinal cord.
• Pineal Gland: responsible for the sleep-wake cycle and the secretion of melatonin.

Gray and White Matter

See figure 5.

• Gray matter is the outer tissue of the brain. It contains neurons (nerve cells), which are composed of somas, axons, and dendrites.
  • Neurons (nerve cells) send and receive messages throughout your body with the nervous system. Made up of:
    • Cell Body (Soma): core section. Contains genetic information and provides energy to send signals. Also maintains the structure of the neuron, similar to the cell membrane of an animal cell.
    • Axon: tail-like fibre. Insulated with myelin. Axons transmit electrical signals, also known as action potentials. These signals are converted into chemical messages at the end of the axon terminal and passed on, which is called neurotransmission.
    • Dendrites: fibres that are attached to the cell body. Similar to antennae, in the sense that they send and receive signals from other neurons’ axons. Sets of dendrites are known as dendritic trees.
• White Matter - also made up of axons, but these aid communication between the different parts of the brain. These axons are wrapped in myelin, a protective layer.

How do neurons work? What is neural transmission?

See figures 6 and 7.

• Two types of connections exist between neurons to transmit messages: chemical synapses and electrical synapses.
• The electrical signals that initiate these messages in the neuron are called action potentials.
• Threshold potential (approximately -50mV to -55mV) is the voltage that needs to be reached for a signal to fire. It’s a voltage imbalance between neurons, causing ions to move to fix the imbalance.
• Resting potential (-70mV) is the voltage difference when the neuron isn’t involved in anything.
• Membrane potential is the difference between the inside and outside charge of a neuron.

Chemical Synaptic Transmission: When thought or sensory input is detected, neurotransmitters bind to receptors on the dendrites, opening ion channels and causing ions to move across the membrane. From there, this voltage travels to the axon hillock. If the voltage generated by the ions hits the threshold required for firing, an action potential is generated, and it travels along the axon to the presynaptic ending. At the synapse (the gap where the neurotransmitters leave one neuron and enter another), neurotransmitters are released and cross the gap. After this, the neurotransmitters bind to neuroreceptors, which open the ion channels of the next neuron, causing the ions to move across the membrane, and the process repeats.

Electrical Synaptic Transmission: Faster and bidirectional. Unlike chemical transmission, neurotransmitters and neuroreceptors don’t exist. Instead, ions travel directly between neurons using gap junctions called connexons. When a neuron is depolarized, ion channels open, creating a voltage difference between it and its connected neighbour. Ions flow through connexons to the connected neuron, changing its membrane potential and potentially triggering an action potential. To actively restore optimal ionic concentrations to each neuron, ions are redistributed through processes called ion pumps, which are initially created by the nucleus. These pumps are powered by ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), which is the energy source of the neuron. Ion pumps happen automatically and constantly. After the signal fires, the pumps redistribute ions that already exist inside and outside each neuron to restore original concentration levels. These pumps are performed in each neuron independently of one another.

Phase 2: Dementia, Parkinson’s, and their causes

Dementia/Alzheimer’s

• Dementia is an umbrella term for symptoms of several diseases that affect cognitive performance, like Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s, and others.
• The most common disease of these is Alzheimer’s, which I’ll be focusing on. It accounts for 60-80% of all dementia diagnoses.
• 40% of people aged 65+ develop cognitive performance issues.
  • These conditions affecting those over 65 are known as age-associated memory loss.
• According to alzheimer.ca, “The idea that dementia is an 'old person's disease’ is not just stigmatizing, it's also a myth.”
• Young-onset dementia is when younger people, usually in their 40s and 50s, develop these symptoms.
• Common dementia symptoms include:
  • Memory loss (forgetting passwords, phone numbers).
  • Problem-solving, thinking, and language difficulties.
  • Mood and behavioural changes.
• Dementia is progressive, as the symptoms worsen over time.

What causes Dementia?

• Dementia is caused by the degradation of nerve cells and their connections in the brain.
• Alzheimer’s, specifically, is caused by genetics. One such gene is called Apolipoprotein E (APOE).
• Plaques and tangles are also found in the brains of those with Alzheimer’s. They clump together, causing issues which interfere with neural transmission.
  • Plaques are clumps of the beta-amyloid protein. They accumulate between nerve cells in the brain. When a larger protein, called amyloid precursor protein (APP), embeds itself in a neuron’s membrane, it’s usually harmless. But if the beta-secretase and gamma-secretase enzymes improperly cut it, it can create smaller protein fragments, called beta-amyloid peptides. These fragments, particularly Aβ42 (beta-amyloid 42), clump together into oligomers, which clump even further into amyloid plaques.
  • Tangles are fibrous clumps of tau protein. While normally beneficial, being used to strengthen microtubules (pathways within neurons), it can thread together in a process called hyperphosphorylation. This is when it acquires too many phosphate groups, and the tau protein detaches from said microtubules. They then begin to weave together, destabilizing the microtubules and tangling themselves within the cytoplasm, harming the nucleus.
• Certain symptoms associated with dementia can be alleviated with the help of treatment and care. These are:
  • Infections and immune disorders
  • Metabolic or endocrine conditions
  • Nutrient deficiencies
  • Medicine side effects
  • Internal bleeding
  • Brain tumours
  • Normal-pressure hydrocephalus: fluid buildup in the ventricles in the brain.
• Risk factors include:
  • Age- especially after age 65. However, dementia is irregular in aging, and on rare occasions can occur in younger people
  • Family History- people who have parents and family with dementia are more likely to develop it
  • Down syndrome- those with it can build dementia symptoms earlier in life.
• However, other risk factors can be averted or changed, including:
  • Lifestyle changes (in diet, exercise and sleep)
  • Alcohol
  • Cardiovascular issues (obesity, blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol)
  • Untreated hearing and vision loss
  • Depression
  • Exposure to pollution and poor environments.
  • Untreated head injury and trauma
  • Vitamin deficiencies
  • Adverse effects of medicinal drugs
• Dementia can lead to complications, such as pneumonia, dependence, safety issues, and even death.
• Generally, staying active and healthy can help to reduce the likelihood of dementia. Thinking can keep your neurons active and form new neural bonds, which help to prevent dementia.

Parkinson’s

• Parkinson’s is a neurodegenerative disease that is also progressive.
• Impacts movement, speech and balance
• The first signs of Parkinson’s include tremors, falls, slow movements, and slurred speech.
• Risk factors include age, genetics, and exposure to toxins. Males are more likely to develop Parkinson’s than females.
• Because it’s neurodegenerative, it can also impact thinking, emotions, sleeping, and eating.
• It can also cause digestive, sensual and other problems.

What causes Parkinson’s?

While a single cause cannot be narrowed down, several things have an impact on the diagnosis of Parkinson’s, these being:

• Genetics- when family members have had it, all their descendants are more likely to develop the disease.
• Environmental factors- like toxins and drugs. MPTP, a substance found in drugs, also lead to the disease.

In the brains of those with Parkinson’s, Lewy bodies are present. These are protein buildups that form in nerve cells. These Lewy bodies also contribute to a form of dementia called Lewy body dementia. Lewy bodies are composed of the protein called alpha-synuclein. When the accumulation of these proteins occurs, they can bond together and form Lewy bodies in nerve cells.

See Figure 8.

Phase 3: Solutions

After trying to figure out the brain’s natural waste disposal system, I discovered the glymphatic system.

Glymphatic System

• Clears proteins, potassium and lactic acid from your brain.
• Also helps spread amino acids, sugar, fat and neurotransmitters.
• In the brain, there are two types of fluids: CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) and ISF (Interstitial Fluid)
  • CSF protects the brain and spinal cord.
  • ISF protects cells and tissue.
• Protein buildup is caused by misfolds, or errors in protein structure. Amino acids are required to twist into a specific form to create these proteins. When the folding is messed up, the proteins can contain different data, causing the protein to clump.
• It works by the CSF entering the brain through perivascular spaces (spaces between blood vessels). After this, it travels through brain tissue and cleanses it of waste. The ISF then takes the waste, leaves the brain through perivascular spaces and enters the lymphatic system.
• The lymphatic system carries the waste to your lymphatic ducts, which empties the waste into the bloodstream. From there, it is disposed of in feces and urine like other bodily waste.

How does electricity break down matter?

My initial thought was similar to electrolysis, where electricity breaks down matter. I then discovered the process of electrolytic lesion. This is when electricity is forced into the brain, but it isn’t selective. Rather, it destroys everything that the electricity comes into contact with. If this were used to remove and destroy protein buildups selectively, that would be fine. However, it’ll also destroy the entire neuron, as well as adjacent neurons, so this won’t be useful.

Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS)

• Helps stimulate brain cells with the help of an implant.
• This stimulation helps brain cells stay active, helping raw thought speed stay high for those who may be experiencing early symptoms of neurological diseases.
• This has already been proven to work with Parkinson’s Disease. However, Alzheimer’s and DBS have no known link.
• It works with the help of a pulse generator, a battery-powered device that controls the amount of stimulation sent into the brain.
• Two surgeries must be completed for DBS to be effective.
  • Brain surgery- to implant wire leads and electrodes into the brain
  • Chest wall surgery- to implant the pulse generator. This is performed when the recipient is under the influence of anesthesia.
• Risks include heart issues, strokes, wire misplacements, headaches, and illness.
• The actual stimulation has its own risks, including mood swings, muscle issues, and overall loss of control while the amount of stimulation is adjusted.

I used many images in this project as diagrams to visually illustrate concepts. Unfortunately, due to formatting issues, I wasn't able to add them here. To view all images used in this project, please see the 'Attachments' section, where I linked a document containing all the images I used. Credits for these images are in the bibliography below.

Conclusion

My hypothesis was partially correct. Through the research of DBS, I was able to confirm that electrical stimulation can be used to treat Parkinson’s. However this treatment is only still treatment, and not a cure. For dementia, however, it’s a different tale. I haven’t been able to confirm that electrical stimulation can affect protein buildups in the brain. All solutions that currently exist involve dangerous procedures that would take a long time to implement safely, and cannot be physically tested at a grade 9 level. However, I learned a lot about the brain, including how neural transmission works, how thought is processed, what causes diseases in the brain, and how changes in your lifestyle can help reduce the impact of these diseases. I found this project very enlightening, because it covers a topic with personal meaning to me, and isn’t something I would’ve learned if it weren’t for this project.

Personal Significance

This project has meaning to me, because I have family members who have experienced dementia and dementia-like symptoms. It’s actually likely that I may develop it later in my life simply due to genetics. I came up with this idea in recognition of all these people, so that us kids of today may not have to experience what those with these diseases go through. As someone who has seen first-hand the effects of dementia and losing a family member to complications arising from dementia, I constantly hope for a cure to dementia and for the world to be rid of neurological diseases.

I want to dedicate this project to my paternal grandpa, whom I never really knew for who he was. When I was younger, he suddenly started experiencing dementia-like symptoms, and those developed very quickly. By the time I was 10, he was a different person from the one my parents and family had known, and it feels very odd to know someone as someone they aren’t. The entire concept of independence doesn’t apply to those with dementia, and to think it all starts with forgetting passwords and phone numbers.. is really, really sad. When I was 12, his condition worsened, and a once perfectly healthy person was diagnosed with pneumonia. He didn’t make it home.

Agarwal, A. (2018, May 14). Corpus callosum – function, definition, location and FAQs.   Human Anatomy – KnowYourBody.net. Retrieved December 25, 2025, from https://www.knowyourbody.net/corpus-callosum.html

Brain anatomy and how the brain works. (n.d.). Johns Hopkins Medicine.   Retrieved December 23, 2025, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain

Deep brain stimulation. (2023, September 19). Mayo Clinic.   Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/deep-brain-stimulation/about/pac-20384562

Deep brain stimulation (DBS): What it is, purpose & procedure. (2022, May 23). Cleveland Clinic.   Retrieved January 21, 2026, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/21088-deep-brain-stimulation

Dementia – symptoms and causes. (2025, June 7). Mayo Clinic.   Retrieved December 31, 2025, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dementia/symptoms-causes/syc-20352013

Dementia with Lewy bodies: New recommendations. (2017, August 17). The Science of Parkinson’s.   Retrieved January 3, 2026, from https://scienceofparkinsons.com/2017/08/17/dementia-with-lewy-bodies-new-recommendations/

Electrolytic lesion. (n.d.). ScienceDirect.   Retrieved January 11, 2026, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/electrolytic-lesion

Glymphatic system: What it is, function & how it works. (2025, October 3). Cleveland Clinic.   Retrieved January 8, 2026, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/glymphatic-system

Grey matter: What it is & function. (2023, March 19). Cleveland Clinic.   Retrieved December 23, 2025, from https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/24831-grey-matter

Health Jade. (n.d.). Ventricles of the brain.   Retrieved December 27, 2025, from https://healthjade.net/ventricles-of-the-brain/

How do plaques and tangles affect brain health? (2025, July 23). Biology Insights.   Retrieved December 31, 2025, from https://biologyinsights.com/how-do-plaques-and-tangles-affect-brain-health/

Lee, S. W. (2023, February 2). How do Lewy bodies contribute to Parkinson’s disease? Healthline.   Retrieved January 3, 2026, from https://www.healthline.com/health/lewy-body-parkinsons

Misfolding of proteins: Causes, consequences, and disease. (2025, July 22). Biology Insights.   Retrieved January 9, 2026, from https://biologyinsights.com/misfolding-of-proteins-causes-consequences-and-disease/

Moawad, H., & Smith, S. (2022, February 28). What is a neuron? Diagrams, types, function, and more. Healthline.   Retrieved December 23, 2025, from https://www.healthline.com/health/neurons

Newman, T., & Nedergaard, M. (2019, June 21). The glymphatic system: What is it and what does it do? Medical News Today.   Retrieved January 7, 2026, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/325493

Parkinson’s disease – symptoms and causes. (2024, September 27). Mayo Clinic.   Retrieved December 30, 2025, from https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/parkinsons-disease/symptoms-causes/syc-20376055

Pelc, C. (2024, October 14). Brain health: How does the brain clear “waste” to protect itself? Medical News Today.   Retrieved January 7, 2026, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-the-brain-flushes-out-toxic-proteins-that-may-lead-to-cognitive-decline

Risk factors for dementia. (2023, October 17). Alzheimer Society of Canada.   Retrieved December 30, 2025, from https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/how-can-i-reduce-risk-dementia/risk-factors-dementia

Spears, C., & Spagna, S. M. (n.d.). Dementia with Lewy bodies. Parkinson’s Foundation.   Retrieved January 3, 2026, from https://www.parkinson.org/understanding-parkinsons/non-movement-symptoms/dementia/lewy-bodies

What causes too much protein in the brain? (2025, December 2). Biology Insights.   Retrieved January 8, 2026, from https://biologyinsights.com/what-causes-too-much-protein-in-the-brain/

What is dementia? (n.d.). Alzheimer Society of Canada.   Retrieved December 29, 2025, from https://alzheimer.ca/en/about-dementia/what-dementia

What is dementia? Symptoms, causes & treatment. (n.d.). Alzheimer’s Association.   Retrieved December 29, 2025, from https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/what-is-dementia

This project has taken a lot of work (including eating up my entire winter break!), so a huge thanks to those who helped me out along the way!

Thank you so much (!):

Mr. DeGelder, my former science teacher and school science fair coordinator. He taught us some relatively simple chemistry which wasn’t as simple after I used a lot of it in this project to figure out how the brain works.

Ms. Burnett, my current science teacher, for teaching us about electricity and current, which proved very useful in this project.

Ms. Martin, my grade 8 science teacher, for what she taught us about the nervous system and those parts of the body.

My friends, who’ve given me a lot of help and support with this project.

My parents and family, for all the help and guidance, and (reluctantly) supporting me spending a lot of time in front of the PC.

The authors and sources of all the information I’ve gathered. I’d be running around hopelessly right now if not for you.

And the CYSF committee, for organizing such an awesome event for youth to showcase our science.