Understanding what really happens in our brain and body when we learn something is like understanding the origins of the universe. Instead, researchers have had to grasp at every piece of knowledge technology and clinical laboratory tests can muster, trying to get enough of the blueprint to understand this phenomenal process that we all take for granted.

A brilliant clinical psychiatrist, Dr. Alios Alzheimer, used a microscope to visibly show the protein plaque and tangles that clogged the brains of patients who had demonstrated accelerated senility. That was in 1907 and since then every form of technology that can provide a clue of evidence or knowledge has been applied to studying the memory process of the human brain. Today, modern imaging technology can place the doctor or researcher in a front row box seat or even take them inside a living brain, where different tissues and chemical elements produce glowing color fields as the brain functions in 3d digital video splendor. The technology has come a long way and so has our understanding of the brains wondrous process. Still, with all the progress we face an ever-increasing number of cases of memory disorders, mild cognitive impairment and the disease that bears Dr. Alzheimer's name.

Looking at the formation of a memory there must first be information or sensory input that forms and travels within a neuron to the brain. The neuron is a miraculous cell structure in itself having specialized ends, one called the axon, which sends a chemical message to another neuron's receiving end, the dendrite. Where the two ends of separate neurons exchange their sensory information is called the synapse. Most of us are familiar with the concept of the synapse being a "brain cell" and humorously refer to the destruction of them in various life activities. There is cruelty in the humor because things like bangs on the head or a shot of whiskey actually do kill these brain cells and that's no joke.

The central switching area for the millions of chemical messages being exchanged in the brain is an area called the Hippocampus. The Hippocampus is centrally located and plays a vital role in conversion of the sensory input being delivered and then processed. In creating the message, the sending neuron is actually stimulating the receiving neuron to produce new proteins, molecules that hold an encoded version of the sensory information it has received. What happens next is nothing short of a miracle: the newly formed proteins act like a chemical feedback to the synapse and at the chemical equivalent of the speed of light the connection at the synapse is modified, forming something similar to a recording of the stimulation. The brain then moves the recording into a storage area and accesses it as we think of it.

Over a century of research has finally produced understanding of the neurotransmission process and of equal importance the requirements of healthy body chemistry that supports the process. The body of knowledge holds little hope to all who fear the development of the disease process in their own lives and the potential that the millions who suffer from Alzheimer's disease could at least have the disease process arrested, perhaps reversed. The one hundred years spanning from Dr. Alzheimer's first diagnosis to today's 3D scanned images of living brains functioning have not produced one case of documented disease reversal. At least, that is what the world thinks.

There are some who have witnessed that first reversal and others who have all ready committed to development of treatments that prevent, arrest and/or reverse the disease process. In the area of neurotransmission there are two chemical engineering pharmaceutical treatment development teams, competing to be the first group producing drugs that stop the erosion of the neurotransmission process and hold promise for allowing the body to repair the damage caused by any degenerative disease process. In short, they are developing pills that stop and reverse the Alzheimer's disease process.

The first is Memory Pharmaceuticals, who is all ready into $150 million collaboration with Roche to take some of Memory's developments to the Alzheimer's, mild cognitive and bipolar depression nations. This effort should have at least one compound into clinical trails within a year. What is most interesting in Memory Pharmaceutical's business plan is their complete focus on an area that has received little or no medical research attention: the neurotransmission process. If they can successfully develop any compound that supports the body's healthy memory process, they will certainly be recognized as holding one part of the Holy Grail in memory related disorders and disease treatment.

The second company emerging is Helicon Therapeutics whose approach to the memory building process differs than that of Memory's, but both teams are focused on the same ends. Both are determined to deliver drugs that clear out and strengthen the brain's ability to clear the signaling pathways and produce the proper protein based chemistry that produces memory.

Both companies are near human trails of separate compounds and that activity will mark progress in the overall effort to produce drug compounds capable of "healing" memory disorders.

Both companies are confident that they will bring tangible results to the market within five to ten years.