Study Explores Electrical Stimulation as an Aid to Memory

Name: Kara                                            Current Event Posting Number: 1
Topic: Health
Title of Article: Study Explores Electrical Stimulation as an Aid to Memory
Author: Benedict Carey
Publication Name: New York Times
Date of Publication: February 8, 2012
Length of Article: 840 words

Recently in early February, scientists have improved memory using an electrical stimulation to the brain. In the past they have tried the electrical stimulation to the hippocampus, critical for memory formation, in the brain but there was a negative impact on new memories. However, just recently, doctors from UCLA, in California, are testing the same electrical stimulation on the brain but in a different region called the entorhinal cortex. The entorhinal cortex is where the Alzheimer's disease hits first and is deeply connected to the hippocampus. The experiment consisted of seven epilepsy patients and connected electrodes into the brain of these patients to follow brain activity. They each played a taxi-driver game to drop off as many passengers to unknown locations as possible. The first trial was the patients playing the game with a low current to stimulate the neurons in the entorhinal cortex. They then played the game over again and performed much better, improving by a range of 40%-90% due to the low current being transmitted in the first trial. The electrical stimulation allowed for an increase of theta waves in the hippocampus, which helps to locate the neurons and aid memory. These scientists and doctors want to find a way to increase memory for patients with dementia so that they can remember the simplest things such as their identity or the direction of the kitchen.

These experiments may seem promising, but they were only tested on seven patients, which is not enough to draw a conclusion. There may be other reasons why these seven patients were able to increase their memory and perhaps it had nothing to do with the electrical stimulation. More research and tests must be done to ensure that there actually is an effect of the electrical stimulation on the brain and specifically memory. However, scientists are willing to keep researching this topic and the effects of the electrical stimulation since it is true that with the low current running through your brain, you will remember better what you were doing at the time of the current. Also, these scientists can save thousands of people with Parkinson's disease and other memory loss disorders if they continue researching what stimulates the memory and how the electrical stimulation plays a part in remembering.