Research: Electrical Brain Stimulation Improves Memory

Memory can be improved for at least a month by safely stimulating parts of the brain with electrolytes.

The researchers tested electrically stimulated parts of the volunteers’ brains and found that they performed better in word memory games that tested both their immediate working memory and their long-term memory. BBC.

according to Robert ReinhartFrom Boston University, the stimulation technique is “a completely different way of isolating and strengthening parts of the brain,” the BBC wrote. He believes that technology offers entirely new and potential treatment options.

Stimulating specific target areas

The results were published in the journal natural neuroscience They showed that the people who struggled at the beginning of the experiment with memory games were the ones whose memory improved the most. All test subjects were healthy without cognitive impairment and were between 65 and 88 years old.

During the experiment, subjects wore a cap filled with electrodes, and then a controlled electric current was used to precisely alter brain waves in specific target areas of the brain. The electric current only feels tingling or itching and changes the rhythm of brain activity, and brain waves, in the areas where it was directed.

Participants received brain stimulation for 20 minutes per day, four consecutive days, and for the duration of the study, they had to memorize lists of words they were asked to remember after a month. Robert Reinhart believes that the treatment can provide a selective improvement in memory that lasts for at least a month.

The result is enhanced by many stimuli

The researchers believe that the four rounds of electrical stimulation boosted results and led to continuous improvements as the brain adapts and rewires itself, a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity.

“It’s a kind of connection with what’s called brain language, which speaks to itself and communicates with itself through electrical impulses,” Robert Reinhart tells the BBC.

Different types of memory

Different types of stimulation are needed to improve different types of memory. Working memory is the memory you use here and now and is essential for decision making and problem solving. To improve working memory, it was necessary to perform low-frequency stimulation of the frontal lobe cortex, in the front part of the brain.

Long-term memory is the memory that allows us to remember things in a long time, to improve it requires high-frequency stimulation of the parietal cortex, in the back of the brain.

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