This article is about using pulses from electrodes that are implanted in a specific part of the brain to help enhance memory. This article is related to the idea about Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation, but goes a little further in helping to correct the brain. It uses electrodes that are implanted in the part of the brain where memory is thought to work and the electrodes stimulate that part of the brain directly the way the TMS excites or inhibits that particular part of the brain from the outside.
This new technology is dubbed as the “pacemaker for the brain” where carefully placed electrodes are used to shock a specific part of the brain when those memory areas are functioning poorly or not all. Michael Kahana, who works with the research team, is quoted as saying, “ We found that jostling the system when it’s in a low-functioning state can jump it to a high-functioning one.”(Carey, 2017). The researchers do caution that this research does not apply everywhere and that this particular study only looked at patients with epilepsy. However, this study does advance our knowledge about stimulating cognitive functioning and allows us to properly and more closely monitor cognitive functioning so that we can precisely stimulate cognitive areas at the right time to help improve thinking and memory in all types of patients who have some type of brain deficit.
The study conducted used 150 patients with some sort of cognitive functioning impairment. One group was given the electrodes (experimental group) and the other group was not given the electrodes (control group). Both groups were asked to memorize list a of words. Then they were both given a distraction. Afterwards, both groups were asked to recall as many words as they could. While they were recalling the information, the scientists also monitored the part of the brain that was related to memory encoding. They found that the experimental group remembered slightly more words than the control group. Dr. Kahana said, “ The average enhancement effect was about 12 to 13 percent” (Carey,2017). This study gives us hope that cognitive degeneration and impairment can be treated and possibly cured. We can combat brain degeneration and give hope for a better quality of life for people with cognitive impairment. The Department of Defense funded this study. They also funded another study using a group of people that had cognitive impairments due to epilepsy. However, this study found that the same treatment did not work for this group.
This study is very exciting in the break through to help people with brain trauma and cognitive impairments. It is like jump-starting the brain in order for it to work properly. I think this research is a big step in helping people and can be used to treat or cure people who are born with cognitive deficits. It could also be used to help people with other psychological disorders like depression, ADHD, ADD, and people in a coma. The specific neurons that we see working in a normal functioning brain can be used as a guide to find the non working neurons in a person with a psychological disorder. These neurons can be stimulated by an electrode in order to jump-start it. I also think it can help people with alzheimer avoid losing brain cells that are not being used. We could go inside the brain and specifically excite a particular neuron so that it does not degenerate and be lost forever.
Reference
Carey, Benedict. (2017, April 20). ‘Pacemaker’ for the Brain Can Help Memory, Study Finds. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/health/brain-memory-dementia-epilepsy-treatments.html
I found this discussion extremely interesting, in fact it brought out many questions about the future of cognition. Are we coming into an era where cognitive degeneration can be completely transformed or eradicated? Working in a hospital, which is primarily gerontological, I wonder if this therapy will be adapted in more hospitals and to what extent can we help to restore the functioning of memory loss due to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease in our patients. It’s interesting to find that the research was initially intended for the study of epilepsy, but it proved to be unsuccessful and actually initiated the beginning of a new charter.
To my understanding psychological disorders like depression are partly related to chemical imbalances which can be treated with medication as well as counseling therapies. I’m curious to know how science will incorporate this transcranial magnetic stimulation to help produce these deficient chemicals which promote the onset of those psychological disorders. Could it possibly stimulate, as it does with memory, the specific brain components associated with the release of these hormones? After brief research on the topic I discovered that this method has already been approved and is in current use by the military. David Shamah (2015) discusses the use of TMS is treating military victims suffering from military related psychological disorders, such as, PTDS, anxiety, depression as well as others.
Memory, in particular we know to be associated with the prefrontal cortex and frontal cortex, but we also know that there are many theories and components to memory that affect it. Part of memory is associated with things that we do, such as procedural memory, or how we can recall information when stimulated by other tasks, similar to articulatory suppression. With that in mind, I wonder to which extent will the therapy of TMS enhance or could the range of possibilities be endless? Could it possibly only help retrieve information strictly related to past experiences, will it help to recall how to do certain tasks, or can it eventually allow us to enhance our current abilities to recall things in our short term memory or long term memory? Are we stepping into the phase of a limitlessness, where anything that enters our sensory perception could be recalled through this technology as a memory, thereby allowing us to remember all messages, attended and unattended. I guess the beauty of science is the factor of the unknown, and testing those limits. Overall I think this is a great contribution to society.
Shamah, D., A., A., Staff, T., Mohamed, H., Solomon, S.,… Staff, A. A.( 20 September 2015). US Navy buys Israeli brain zapper to treat vets. Retrieved February 24, 2018, from http://www.timeofisrael.com/us-navy-buys-Israeli-brain-zapper-to-treat-vets/