Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
Memory Improved By Direct Electrical Stimulation
Direct electrical stimulation has been demonstrated to improve memory for the first time, according to a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Scientists showed that the stimulating current, administered through electrodes in a specific area of the brain, greatly improved performance in a virtual driving game that tests spatial memory.
(University of Pennsylvania taxi-driver game to test memory)
“People should run to replicate this study, because the implications are incredibly exciting, both for understanding the mechanism for encoding new memories, and ultimately for the treatment of neurological diseases” like dementias, said Michael J. Kahana, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, who was not involved in the research.In the new study, a team of doctors at the University of California, Los Angeles, focused on a neighboring area, called the entorhinal cortex. The entorhinal cortex is now the center of intense study. It is where the first signs of damage in Alzheimer’s disease usually appear, and it has dense connections to the hippocampus, through which it transmits the streaming data of daily experience, studies suggest — presumably for sifting and encoding.
Improvements of 40 to 90 percent were noted in observations of how well the patients performed on a computer taxi driver game.
People have been fascinated by the electrical nature of the brain, and by experiments to improve or alter brain function using electrical stimulation for a long time; the use of electrodes to capture the electrical phenomena in the brain was first demonstrated in 1912 by Russian physiologist Vladimir Pravdich-Neminsky.
Golden Age science fiction writer Dave Cummins wrote about the idea of enhancing brain memory playback with electrical stimulation in his 1937 short story Brain Control:
The doctor was pleased. "Evidently my process worked perfectly. I call it automatic reversed memory. By sending the proper electric currents through that helmet I reverse the electrical action of the nerve cells in the brain and produce this reversed memory... as real as actual experience."
(Read more about automatic reversed memory)
Via New York Times.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/12/2012)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Medical ")
Heart Patches Grown In The Lab Repair Hearts
I'm hoping that this procedure becomes a normal part of medical practice!
Pixel Watch 'Loss of Pulse Detection' And Philip K. Dick
'He carried on his person a triggering mechanism sensitive to his heartbeat.' - Philip K. Dick, 1965.
ErythroMer Artificial Blood
'My chemists are all working on the preparation of the artificial blood.' - Dr. David H. Keller, M.D.
MouthPad Supports Head And Tongue Tracking
'The operation that had transformed half his body... had located the control switchboard in his teeth.'- Alfred Bester, 1956.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Is Agentic AI The Wrong Kind Of Smartness?
'It’s smart enough to go wrong in very complicated ways, but not smart enough to help us find out what’s wrong.'
Heat Waver - The First Ever Combo Solar Collector And Wind Turbine
'...like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.'
Tesla 'Fleet Response Agents' Bolster FSD Autonomy
'You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life... in his hands.'
Mori3 Autonomous Shapeshifting Robot
'My homeland is being threatened by the Replicators. Thus far all attempts to stop them have failed.'
Tesla Seeks 'Tesla Robotaxi' And 'Robobus' Trademarks Ignoring Prior Art
'A robobus had just rolled up to the curb.'
Scary Grid Safety Robots
'The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture...'
Does AI Provide A Way Forward For Talk Therapy
'And there in the next room by the sofa sat a familiar suitcase, that of his psychiatrist Dr. Smile.'
Robotic Barber Programmed With a Number of Styles
'He found a barber shop which, he thought, would be good for an idle hour.'
Humanoid Boxing Robot KO's Opponent - It's A Knockout!
'Thirty rounds of fighting is tough work. Even for machines.'
Caterpillar Electric Mining Loader Not Yet Ready For Moon
'...the excavations were already in progress, for he saw gray slopes of rubble.'
Centipede Robots Down On The Farm
'...the walking mills of Puffy Products began to tread delicately on their centipede legs across the wheat fields of Kansas.'
Anthropic's Claude AI Creates Legal Citation From Whole Cloth
'Here is a Clerk that would work incessantly, and neither eat, sleep, want payment, or grumble.'
Students Vie For Lunar Regolith Mining Robot Prize
'About time you got here,' the astronaut said.
'They Erased My Memory' Says Ariana Grande
'...using a neutralizing electronic impulse.'
Solitary Black Hole Wanders In Space
'...the Hole is something like a vortex or a whirlpool?'
Spaceplane From Virgin Atlantic
'ZARNAK, YOU'RE TO COMMAND A SCOUTING EXPEDITION --- FIND OUT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!'
