New Startup Aims to Commercialize a Brain Prosthetic to Improve Memory
From: IEEE Spectrum - 08/16/2016
By: Eliza Strickland

A startup named Kernel revealed its ambitious mission: to develop a
ready-for-the-clinic brain prosthetic to help people with memory problems.
The broad target market includes people with Alzheimer's and other forms of
dementia, as well as those who have suffered a stroke or traumatic brain
injury.

In the company's approach, electrodes in the hippocampus first record
electrical signals from certain neurons as they learn something new and
encode the memory. These electrical signals are the result of neurons
"firing" in specific patterns. Berger studied how electrical signals
associated with learning are translated into signals associated with storing
that information in long-term memory. Then his lab built mathematical models
that take any input (learning) signal, and produce the proper output (memory)
signal.

An implanted memory prosthetic would have electrodes to record signals during
learning, a microprocessor to do the computations, and electrodes that
stimulate neurons to encode the information as a memory.

Read the entire article at:
http://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/bionics/new-startup-aims-to-commercialize-a-brain-prosthetic-to-improve-memory

Links:
Kernel
http://kernel.co

Ted Berger
http://bme.usc.edu/directory/faculty/core-faculty/theodore-w-berger

We Will End Disability by Becoming Cyborgs (2014)
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/we-will-end-disability-by-becoming-cyborgs

Related:
How Brain Pacemakers Treat Parkinson's Disease
http://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/how-brain-pacemakers-treat-parkinsons-disease

Life as a Bionic Woman
http://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/bionics/life-as-a-bionic-woman