What is Alzheimer's Disease?

Scientists aren’t absolutely sure what causes cell death and tissue loss in the Alzheimer's brain, but the plaques and tangles are prime suspects.

Does Memory Loss Always Mean Dementia?

Dementia is a broad category of symptoms that affect the brain and causes memory loss.

Early onset Alzheimer's

Although, Alzheimer’s is viewed as a disease of the elderly, up to 5% of Americans with Alzheimer’s have the early-onset variety, which can start to show symptoms as early as one’s 30s.

Showing posts with label Brain electrodes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brain electrodes. Show all posts

Saturday, January 20, 2018

Brain electrodes may help Alzheimer’s patients keep memories

brain electrodes

Brain electrodes developed by researchers from the University of South Carolina and North Carolina’s Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center may help people suffering from memory loss and soldiers with brain-damage recapture their memories.

An estimated 5.5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, according to a 2015 report. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the US. 1 in 3 seniors in the US die with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. Alzheimer’s affects almost 800,000 people in the UK.


In a normal brain, when sensory inputs in the forms of sights, sounds, smells, and feelings are sent, it creates a memory by sending complex electrical signals through the hippocampus region. 

Hippocampus is the part of the brain where memories are stored. The signals are then encoded at each region until it reaches the final region, where a completely different signal is sent for long-term storage.

However, if there is damage in any of the regions, it prevents the encoding and the brain fails to form a long-term memory. This is why Alzheimer’s patients can recall events that happened in the past before the brain damage, but cannot form new long-term memories due to hippocampus damage.


For the implant, electrodes are placed in hippocampus region of the brain. It has shown promising results in tests on rats and monkeys. Then they successfully used it on humans.

brain electrodes

Researchers used patients with chronic seizures who had brain electrodes implanted in the hippocampus region of the brain for their treatment.

The brain electrodes were used on hundreds of trial that involved 9 patients, the algorithm accurately predicted how the signals would be translated about 90% of the time.

Ted Berger, a scientist from the Wake Forest involved with this project explains it like being capable of translating from Spanish to French without knowing either language.

This test suggests that a device can be designed to replace or support functions in the part of the brain that is damaged, said Robert Hampson of Wake Forest Baptist.

Researchers hope that this project with brain electrodes will help treat neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s disease.

Brain electrodes are also being tested on paraplegics to help them perform simple movements with robotic arms or their limbs.

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Dr. Clare Walton, research manager at UK’s Alzheimer’s Society believes this device, if successfully tested in humans, could be an effective treatment for specific dementia symptoms, but it will not slow the progression of the disease or cure it.

Now, the researchers using brain electrodes are attempting to send back the translated signal in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients to try to bypass the damaged region, thereby allowing the formation of long-term memories.