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.
Long term effects? (Score:2)
This could severely backfire a few years down the road.
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Yes, I would definitely put this under "what could possibly go wrong?"
We have had many methods to improve "brains" in the past, LSDs (acid), methamphetamine, and other stimulants. Granted this is not a chemical, but an electrical intrusion, but an intrusion nonetheless.
I am thankful to all those pioneers that will test this for us, and if somehow proven safe, we might try it in a decade or two.
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Remember when we drilled holes into peoples brains to lobotomize them? So scientific... ...and now Dr. Fried, wants to fry your brain, yeeees.
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This could severely backfire a few years down the road.
Ya, but this might be better than all those memory enhancement pills advertised on late-night TV where the people always say, "I started taking this about two years ago..." -- they can't even remember exactly when they started taking the pills!! :-)
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...or not. It could result in brain cancer, for all we know.
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No idea, really, as I don't live in the mighty ole US of A.
Paging Doctor Venkman! (Score:3)
Because brain stimulation during the day is out? (Score:2)
Do they even know what they are doing? (Score:2)
Our current methods of 'fixing the brain' are like trying to fix a desktop computer with medieval tools and level of knowledge.
Re: Do they even know what they are doing? (Score:2)
And playing Frankenstein with the human brain to do it.
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Our current methods of 'fixing the brain' are like trying to fix a desktop computer with medieval tools and level of knowledge.
I have often thought it's like trying to fix a computer by dragging a car battery's terminals across it and occasionally finding it fixes things, with no real knowledge of how it's working and what other damage it's doing.
The problem I particularly have with anything that claims to improve memory like this, is that we don't really know enough about how memories are stored, and what the penalties are. There's a reason we don't remember every single minute of every day. Despite popular belief that the human p
It works while awake too (Score:1)
18 participants? (Score:2)