The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) at the US Department of Defense has developed an implant that is implanted directly into the human brain.
The agency said their device - a brain implant - could help people suffering from memory loss from traumatic brain injury or other pathologies.
Developers of DARPA's active memory (RAM) recovery program presented their preliminary findings at a forum hosted by the agency in St. Louis.
Previous research has found that applying electrical stimuli directly to the parts of the brain that are associated with memory improves information memory.
Justin Sanchez, RAM manager, said: “After a year of hard work, a new approach to memory recovery has been found, the method has already been tested on several dozen volunteers.
The purpose of this study is to determine the nervous processes involved in the formation of memory and the process of its restoration. The implanted electrodes provide signals for specific groups of neurons in order to influence the accuracy of memories."
The first results showed that it is possible to record and interpret key signals or neural codes coming from the brain during memory coding and recovery.
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In addition, memory can be improved through targeted electrical stimulation of the brain.
“Everyone has had the experience of memorizing long lists of objects or difficult routes and the like, and today we are saying that implantable neurodevices can improve the functioning of these brain functions,” Sanchez said in a statement.
- We are now working on an important issue - we are trying to determine the ideal timing for the delivery of electrical stimuli. We have yet to learn how the human brain encodes declarative memory, but these early experiments already provide an opportunity to help people with certain types of memory disorders.”