Scientists Zap Sleeping Humans' Brains with Electricity to Improve Their Memory (npr.org) 17
"A little brain stimulation at night appears to help people remember what they learned the previous day," reports NPR — a finding that could one day help people with memory problems, sleeps issues, or depression:
A study of 18 people with severe epilepsy found that they scored higher on a memory test if they got deep brain stimulation while they slept, a team reports in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
The stimulation was delivered during non-REM sleep, when the brain is thought to strengthen memories it expects to use in the future. It was designed to synchronize the activity in two brain areas involved in memory consolidation: the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.
"Some improved by 10% or 20%, some improved by 80%," depending on the level of synchrony, says Dr. Itzhak Fried, an author of the study and a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.
The stimulation was delivered during non-REM sleep, when the brain is thought to strengthen memories it expects to use in the future. It was designed to synchronize the activity in two brain areas involved in memory consolidation: the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex.
"Some improved by 10% or 20%, some improved by 80%," depending on the level of synchrony, says Dr. Itzhak Fried, an author of the study and a professor of neurosurgery at the University of California, Los Angeles.