Committing to Memory
From: IEEE Pulse - 02/15/2017
By: Michele Solis

Memory prosthetics show promise in helping those with neurodegenerative
disorders.

Engineers, neurologists, and neuroscientists have teamed up to develop memory
prosthetics that precisely inject electrical current to shore up memory
circuits. A clinical trial of people with mild Alzheimer's disease has found
that deep brain stimulation (DBS) of one brain region can keep memory
circuitry online. In another approach, two DARPA-funded projects aim to
strengthen memory by firming up the initial formation, or encoding, of a
memory. This involves a device that can sense when the ongoing chatter of
neurons is less than necessary to encode a memory and then bump up neural
activity accordingly. Such devices consist of tabletop versions now, but
researchers are striving to make them fully implantable. The efforts are
pushing the limits of understanding human memory and electronics alike.

Read the entire article at:
http://pulse.embs.org/january-2017/committing-to-memory