Researchers Prove That Precisely Timed Brain Stimulation Improves Memory

Precisely timed electrical stimulation to the left side of the brain can reliably and significantly enhance learning and memory performance by as much as 15 percent, according to a team led by Michael Kahana, professor of psychology. It is the first time such a connection has been made and is a major advance toward the goal of Restoring Active Memory, a U.S. Department of Defense–sponsored project aimed at developing next-generation technologies to improve memory function in veterans with memory loss.

In the study, the researchers monitored a patient’s brain activity in real time during a task. As the patient watched and attempted to absorb a list of words, a computer tracking and recording brain signals would make predictions based on those signals and then prompt an electrical pulse, at safe levels and unfelt by the participants, when they were least likely to remember the new information.

“By developing patient-specific, personalized, machine-learning models,” Kahana says, “we could program our stimulator to deliver pulses only when memory was predicted to fail, giving this technology the best chance of restoring memory function. This was important because we knew from earlier work that stimulating the brain during periods of good function was likely to make memory worse.”

The research was published in Nature Communications.

Click here to read the full story.