Electrical shocks that simulate the patterns seen in the brain when you are learning have enhanced human memory for the first time, boosting performance on tests by up to 30 per cent. A similar approach may work for enhancing other brain skills, such as vision or movement, says the team behind the work.
“We are writing the neural code to enhance memory function,” says Dong Song of the University of Southern California,who presented the findings at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Washington DC this week. “This has never been done before.”
The device mimics the brain
signals associated with learning
and memory, stimulating similar
patterns of brain activity in the
hippocampus via electrodes. Song
and his team implanted their
device in 20 volunteers who were
already having electrodes placed
in their brains to treat epilepsy.
First, the team used the device
to collect data on patterns of
activity in the brainwhen the
volunteerswere doing a
memorytest. It involved trying to
rememberwhich unusual, blobby
shapes they had been shown5 to
10 seconds before. This test
measures short-termmemory,
and people normally score around
80 per cent on this task.
Rerouting memory
The volunteers also did a more
difficult version of the test, in
which they had to remember
images they had seen between
10 and 40 minutes before.
This measures working
memory – the things we keep
at the front of our minds while
making decisions, for example.
The team used the data to work
out the patterns of brain activity
associated with each person’s
best memory performances.
The group then made the device
electrically stimulate similar
brain activity in the volunteers
while they did more tests.
A third of the time, the device
stimulated the participants’
brains in a way the team thought
would be helpful. Another third
of the time, it stimulated the
brain with random patterns of
electricity. For the remaining
third of the time, it didn’t
stimulate the brain at all.
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