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.
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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.
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.
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.