http://www.technologyreview.com/news/536331/work-begins-on-brain-stimulator-to-correct-memory/
For some of the approximately 10 million people worldwide
with traumatic brain injury (TBI), forming and holding onto new
memories can be one of the hardest things they’ll do in a day. Now
imagine a device implanted in the brain that can help them encode
memories by means of small electric shocks.
Initial
steps toward such a memory neuroprosthetic are being taken at the
University of Pennsylvania, where researchers have started tests on
brain surgery patients to try to locate, and influence, the processes
that control memory formation.
When
people suffer brain injuries, several things happen. Neurons might be
damaged from the initial impact or from bruising or swelling in the
brain afterward. The axons that connect brain regions might be severely
jarred during impact, in some cases literally separating from neurons.
The
brain is “a complex network of neurons that all have to communicate
with each other,” says Matthew Kirschen, a pediatric neurologist at the
Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who is not involved in the Penn
research. “All you need is a little disruption in axonal process and
memory is impaired.”
The
Pennsylvania team is one of several in the United States that were
funded last year by DARPA, the Pentagon research agency, to design and
build stimulators that could influence cognition by constantly recording
brain function and zapping particular brain areas with low doses of
electricity (see “Military Funds Brain-Computer Interfaces to Control Feelings”).
The
Penn team, led by cognitive neuroscientist Michael Kahana, has already
begun analyzing brain recordings from patients with severe epilepsy. As
part of their treatment, these patients receive a small mesh of
electrodes under their skulls, which they wear for two to seven weeks.
The electrodes collect EEG recordings that are used to calculate where
in their brains their seizures are originating, in preparation for
surgery to remove the malfunctioning tissue.
While
they undergo this treatment, some patients are also volunteering to let
Kahana study them as they play memory games on a computer. The EEG
electrodes record the average electrical activity of tens of thousands
of neurons at once; Kahana says some of the brain waves measured this
way are correlated with memory function.
More at link.
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