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Zapping the brain reverses age-related memory loss in the elderly, while scientists say they could no longer "differentiate treated retirees from treatment dispensed"
- Researchers in Illinois, USA, tested 16 people aged 64 to 80 years.
- They discovered that their brain had found that of a young adult five days later.
- Current is intended for the seahorse, which controls the memories and emotions
Zapping the brains of the elderly could refine their memories so that they are as good as those of the younger decades.
Scientists have discovered that stimulation of a certain part of the brain has stimulated the memory of over 64-year-olds with normal age-related memory loss.
This worked so well that the researchers found no difference in the test results of the volunteers who followed the treatment and younger, healthier adults.
The results are the latest in a long series of medical tests aimed at exploring the benefits of electrical stimulation on the brain.
Just two weeks ago, a similar study showed that zapping the brains of people over 60 could give their memory the same power as people in their twenties.
The lead investigator said that electrical stimulation worked so well in one trial, that there was no difference between the test results done by the people who followed the treatment and by the adults over young and healthier (stock image)
Scientists from Northwestern University, in Illinois, have tested the effects of using electrical currents targeting the hippocampus of the brain.
The 16 participants were aged 64 to 80 and had normal memory problems for their age.
After five days of zeal in the brain caused by low-intensity electrical currents 20 minutes a day, their memory capacity was comparable to that of people under three years of age.
"The memory of the elderly has improved to the point that we could no longer differentiate them from younger people," said Dr. Joel Voss, the chief investigator.
They have improved significantly.
Before the electrical therapy – called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) – the over-64s performed 15% less memory tests than the 18- to 34-year-olds.
In the first round, they got 40% of the results on the computer tasks, which forced them to remember precise and invented relationships between the objects of a test.
The youngest participants scored 55% in the previous search, but the scores were equal after the TMS treatment.
TMS has increased activity of the parietal lobe, which controls the hippocampus – it can not be stimulated directly because it is too deep inside the organ.
The creation of new memories, learning and control of emotions are all functions influenced by the hippocampus, which scientists have targeted just above the left ear.
In a research published last year, Dr. Voss and his team tried the same therapy – administered with the help of a metal coil placed against the scalp – on 16 children under the age of 15. 34 years without memory problems, which they used for comparison in this research.
They found that the participants' ability to remember the details of the photos had improved for at least 24 hours after the procedure.
Dr. Voss is not sure about the possible duration of the effects, but hopes to test it in people with mild cognitive impairment – a precursor to Alzheimer's disease.
At the time, he said: "If you think that the memory network of the brain generates a unit of activity every time it tries to memorize an image, brain stimulation allowed to generate the same type of image.
"This increase in activity means excitability enhanced by stimulation – and this is important because excitability is a marker of good memory formation."
A study released earlier this month found that people over 60 could find memories as good as 20-year-olds using electric currents.
In the difference tests, people in their 60s did the same thing as people aged 20 to 30 after being stimulated in the temporal and prefrontal parts of their brains.
This research was done by Boston University, where researchers said it could lead to a headset to "turbo charge" the failing memories of the elderly.
Brain waves connecting different parts of the brain were out of sync in the elderly and then re-synchronized by electrical currents.
Dr. Robert Reinhart, head of the study, said, "These findings are important because they do not just allow us to better understand the brain fundamentals of age-related working memory decline.
"But they also show us that negative age-related changes are not immutable – that we can bring back the higher memory function of work than we had when we were much younger."
Research conducted today by Northwestern University is published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
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