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People start to forget things as they get older, such as where they place the keys to their car or what they had at breakfast.
But their memories could be stimulated by an electromagnetic device that gives the brain a useful zap, reports a new study.
A small group of seniors found an improvement in memory after five daily sessions of using the device, to the point that they performed memory tasks as well as a group "control" "young adults.
"After receiving stimulation, they were worse than the young people performing the same task," said lead researcher Joel Voss. He is an associate professor of neurology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago.
The process, called transcranial magnetic stimulation, is already approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to help people with depression, Voss said.
The researchers wondered if such magnetic stimulation could help invigorate brain regions associated with memory, particularly the hippocampus. It is the region of the brain that atrophies as people grow up, and is thought to be responsible for the decline of memory.
Thus, the investigators recruited 15 people aged 64 to 80 years with normal age-related memory problems and used magnetic stimulation on specific brain regions targeted with the help of a doctor. MRI scanner of the brain.
The stimulation took place in half-hour sessions over five consecutive days, Voss said. These are essentially researchers who place a magnetic coil in the form of Figure 8 against the head of each patient.
"It uses a magnetic field that you turn on and off very, very fast," Voss said. "It induces electrical activity from a distance, no electricity is going through their skulls or anything like that."
The hippocampus is too deep inside the brain for magnetic fields to penetrate. The team has therefore targeted an area of the parietal lobe – far behind the left ear – which is strongly related to the hippocampus, he explained.
The test subjects were then brought back after a day of rest to see if the magnets had a lasting effect on the brain.
Prior to the experiment, older participants in the study had less successful memory tasks than a group of young adults aged 25 years on average. Older people answered about 40% of the questions, compared to 55%, according to the researchers.
But after stimulation, older people tested on par with their younger counterparts, the results showed.
The report was published online April 17 in the journal Neurology.
"Activity in the hippocampal network has increased based on stimulation, suggesting that the network is better at creating memories after receiving stimulation," Voss said.
Among older participants in the study, memory memorization ability improved by 31% and, on average, they were able to correctly answer 43 out of 84 questions during a test of memory, compared to 33 out of 84 before stimulation.
Unfortunately, the effect did not last. A week-long follow-up test showed that memory enhancements had been dissipated, Voss said.
It is possible that by stimulating people longer, or modifying them in one way or another, the memory enhancement may last longer, he said. suggested.
The device is very expensive, but its use in depression has already created a pattern in which people go every day for therapeutic stimulation, Voss noted.
It's one of many approaches that use non-invasive methods to interact with the brain, said Rebecca Edelmayer, director of scientific engagement at the Alzheimer's Association.
This device is currently used to treat depression and electrodes that provide electrical stimulation to the brain are used to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, said Edelmayer.
A study published last week in the journal Nature Neuroscience used electrodes attached to a special electroencephalographic electrode to improve working memory in the elderly, helping different areas of the brain to better harmonize.
"The idea that we might have something that is not necessarily a drug but something that could help with neural communication could certainly be a breakthrough for therapies for people living with a neurodegenerative disease," he said. said Edelmayer.
However, Edelmayer noted that it was a very small study and that it needed to be replicated before having enough evidence to support the treatment of memory loss related to l & # 39; age.
More information
The US National Institute of Mental Health has more on transcranial magnetic stimulation.
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