Zapping the brains of dementia patients may help to boost their memory, says study
Using electricity to stimulate the brains of sleeping dementia patients can help their ability to process and store information
STIMULATING the brains of sleeping dementia patients with electricity may boost memory, a study suggests.
Researchers say snoozing is important for the brain to store and consolidate things that have been learned earlier in the day.
Now neuroscientists have found a specific type of electrical current can strengthen the memory of healthy people if applied while they doze.
They hope the non-invasive technique could also help millions with conditions such as autism, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and depression.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, involved 16 men who took two common memory exercises before and after going to sleep.
Participants had electrodes placed at specific spots on their scalps as they slept.
On the first night, patients received a current of weak electricity which was synchronised with the brain's natural electrical wave.
The next night they received a placebo - a fake stimulation.
This was repeated throughout a period of time so the data could be analysed.
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Each morning researchers at the University Of North Carolina, United States, asked participants to recall what they had remembered.
Dr Caroline Lustenberger, from UNC, said: “We’re excited about this because we know sleep spindles, along with memory formation, are impaired in a number of disorders, such as schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s.
“We hope that targeting these sleep spindles could be a new type of treatment for memory impairment and cognitive deficits.”
Professor Flavio Frohlich, also from UNC, said: “We didn’t know if sleep spindles enable or even cause memories to be stored and consolidated.
“They could’ve been merely by-products of other brain processes that enabled what we learn to be stored as a memory.
“But our study shows that, indeed, the spindles are crucial for the process of creating memories we need for every-day life. And we can target them to enhance memory.”
The study was the first where scientists reported selectively targeting sleep spindles without also increasing other natural electrical brain activity during sleep.
Professor Frohlich added: “This demonstrated a direct causal link between the electric activity pattern of sleep spindles and the process of motor memory consolidation.
“The next step is to try the same intervention, the same type of non-invasive brain stimulation, in patients that have known deficits in these spindle activity patterns.”