Increasing memory performance through neurotechnology
Published: Thursday, Oct 31st 2024, 13:30
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Researchers at EPFL have improved the memory performance of healthy people. To do so, they have combined virtual reality, non-invasive brain stimulation and brain imaging. This is a first step towards treating dementia without medication or surgery.
As we get older, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember where certain objects are located - be it keys or the place where we parked our car. This spatial memory deteriorates even further with the onset of dementia, as the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) explained in a press release.
The study, published in the journal "Science Advances", shows that targeted, painless electrical impulses applied to the hippocampus and adjacent structures - a deep brain region involved in memory and spatial navigation - can improve the brain's ability to remember places and orient itself.
This study is the result of a collaboration between two EPFL laboratories. The experiment begins by attaching electrodes to the heads of healthy volunteers to stimulate the hippocampus and adjacent structures.
This technique sends out targeted impulses without causing any discomfort. Volunteers are then immersed in a virtual world with the help of virtual reality goggles. There, they have to navigate through a series of locations and remember landmarks.
"When the stimulation was applied, we observed a significant improvement in participants' recall time - the time it took them to start moving to the place where they thought the object was," explains a co-author of the study.
The experiment was conducted in a functional magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The team obtained real-time images of brain activity, which were used to track the reactions of the hippocampus and surrounding regions during spatial navigation tasks.
©Keystone/SDA
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