I still think this research attracts less attention than it deserves:
People’s ability to remember fades with age — but one day, researchers might be able to use a simple, drug-free method to buck this trend.
In a study published on 22 August in Nature Neuroscience1, Robert Reinhart, a cognitive neuroscientist at Boston University in Massachusetts, and his colleagues demonstrate that zapping the brains of adults aged over 65 with weak electrical currents repeatedly over several days led to memory improvements that persisted for up to a month.
Previous studies have suggested that long-term memory and ‘working’ memory, which allows the brain to store information temporarily, are controlled by distinct mechanisms and parts of the brain. Drawing on this research, the team showed that stimulating the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex — a region near the front of the brain — with high-frequency electrical currents improved long-term memory, whereas stimulating the inferior parietal lobe, which is further back in the brain, with low-frequency electrical currents boosted working memory.
“Their results look very promising,” says Ines Violante, a neuroscientist at the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK. “They really took advantage of the cumulative knowledge within the field.”
Memory boost
Using a non-invasive method of stimulating the brain known as transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), which delivers electrical currents through electrodes on the surface of the scalp, Reinhart’s team conducted a series of experiments on 150 people aged between 65 and 88. Participants carried out a memory task in which they were asked to recall lists of 20 words that were read aloud by an experimenter. The participants underwent tACS for the entire duration of the task, which took 20 minutes.
You can read the rest at Nature.
I've experienced this but with a non-user-friendly device that tied up one of my hands so became impractical for actual use. If it were up to me I could work with this mental assistance. I'd want to be working with a gamer helmet. Probably have to shave my head but it would be worth it. This is a live issue for me due to attention deficit issues. But the reality is that with ageing populations we need all the help we can extending peoples working life. So we need to implement some of these aids.
ReplyDeletePlus how about a project to take tankers full of low deuterium water from the antarctic to our local stores for drinking? In a world where the average working age must climb we need to start implementing these strategies in a serious way. We don't want to believe all this propaganda that AI and robotics can replace human beings. This is a kind of compounded misunderstanding of what is going on.
Graeme my perspective is similiar. I'm annoyed by the obvious loss of some cognitive faculties and with rare exception that is the fate of most humans. There was the nootropic trend but that died away. However since the late 1990's with a change in the model for immunology and the research into neuroimmunology it is becoming possible to develop interventions that could create remarkable improvements. I read a rodent study several years ago that pointed to the idea. Two groups, both had gene insertions to increase growth hormone production but one group also had a special diet to hopefully counter the high oxidation rates that can occur with accelerated growth. The former group did well up to middle aged then declined precipitously. The latter group maintained near youth cognition.
ReplyDeleteIt's possible. It may be a little too late for us but there are already some things that can be done.