Magnetic Electrical Current Boosts Memory

By Rick Nauert PhD Senior News Editor Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on August 29, 2014

External stimulation of the brain with electrical current using magnetic pulses has been found to improve memory.

Researchers from Northwestern Medicine believe the discovery may signal a new method to treat memory impairments associated with diseases such as stroke, early Alzheimers disease, cardiac arrest, and traumatic brain injury.

Additionally, investigators believe the technique may also help memory problems associated with normal aging.

We show for the first time that you can specifically change memory functions of the brain in adults without surgery or drugs, which have not proven effective, said senior author Dr.Joel Voss, assistant professor of medical social sciences at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

This noninvasive stimulation improves the ability to learn new things. It has tremendous potential for treating memory disorders.

The study will be published in a forthcoming edition of Science.

Researcher report the investigation is the first to demonstrate that remembering events requires a collection of many brain regions to work in combination with the hippocampus similar to a symphony orchestra.

The electrical stimulation is like giving the brain regions a more talented conductor so they play in closer synchrony as, in fact, the brain regions played together better after the stimulation, says Voss.

The approach also has potential for treating mental disorders such as schizophrenia in which these brain regions and the hippocampus are out of sync with each other, affecting memory and cognition.

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Magnetic Electrical Current Boosts Memory