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Serious brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia may have a chance of being treated in the near future. According to a new study, shocking the brain seems to be showing promising results. ( pixabay )
Failing memory comes with age, everyone knows it. But a new study suggests that the decline in memory can be improved by electrical impulses.
To date, there is no known cure for serious brain disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and dementia. However, this may well change in the future.
New research published in Nature Neuroscience Monday says that age-related memory loss can be improved. The study was conducted by Robert Reinhart, neuroscientist at Boston University, and by PhD student John Nguyen.
Work memory
"Age-related changes are not immutable," said Reinhart. "We can bring back the higher memory function you had when you were much younger."
To achieve the results, Reinhart and Nguyen focused on working memory, an essential aspect of cognition, responsible for short-term information retention. This is extremely useful for common tasks such as reading, conversation or arithmetic.
According to scientists, the working memory of a person gradually decreases as it ages. This usually happens even without any symptoms of dementia. One of the main factors is the progressive disconnection of two major brain networks called temporal and prefrontal regions.
Stimulate the brain
Forty-two healthy adults with no cognitive or cerebral problems aged 20 to 29 and 42 adults aged 60 to 76 years were recruited to participate in the study. The experiment consisted simply of a "game of search for differences" in which two similar images were shown successively on a screen and they had to understand what was different in the second image.
During the activity, brain activities of the participants were measured with the help of an electroencephalogram. The researchers first performed the task without any brain simulation, and the results showed that the older group of participants performed less well.
After the first phase, the researchers gave the former group 25 minutes of noninvasive brain simulation. This involved pbading light pulses of electricity through the scalp and into the brain to effectively synchronize the two target brain regions.
The results were amazing, as it was shown that the working memory of the older group had improved considerably and even identical to that of the younger group. The effect seemed to last 50 minutes after the experiment and even those who had achieved the lowest score improved as well as the others.
"These findings are important because they not only give us new insights into the brain fundamentals of the age-related decline in working memory, but they also show us that negative age-related changes do not occur. are not immutable, "said Reinhart.
Treatment of brain disorders
Walter Paulus and Zsolt Turi, both clinical neurophysiologists at the University Medical Center in Göttingen, were impressed by the results of the study and said that the future of treatment for serious brain disorders such as dementia, Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia could be the future.
However, more important studies must be done before this "brain synchronization technique" can be applied clinically. It is not known yet whether this technique will have side effects on the human body, but the onset of treatment for forms of dementia remains promising.
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