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Scientists Discover Way To Reverse Memory Loss
electricbern writes "Scientists have accidentally discovered how to reverse memory loss by stimulating a specific part of the hypothalamus. Good news for people with Alzheimer's and those who just forgot where they left the car keys."
I forgot what I was going to post.
So this is a cure for the side affects of marijuana right?
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. indymedia
I wonder whether there's a specific herb that's bad for that part of the brain, either eaten, drunk or smoked. Could be a good way to get through life's many best-forgotten moments.
Or, for those living the dream, maybe there's some herb that's good for that part of the brain.
I know I'd prefer that to going under the knife or taking a pill with some synthetic stuff no one ever tried before.
--
make install -not war
Everytime I shock myself I remember fresh why I don't like shocking myself.
they could provide brain stimulus to help erectile dysfunction, getting old might actually be fun!
Maybe I'll remember what I was going to say.
I guess from now on I'll have to perform the 8 level DoD 5220.69M brain wipe instead of the plain old erase procedure :(
If you forget where you put the car keys once in a while, that's not a problem. If however, you forget what they are for, then you have a problem.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
If you are going to insert electrodes into politicians, why waste it on their head? There are better choices available.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I find I lose more than half my memory when I load Vista.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
-- how to eat
-- how to dump
-- how to wipe
-- how to bathe
-- how to relax
-- how to drive
-- how to ride a bike
-- etc...
What is there to remember?
Maybe it's not mere repetition, but intensity of act of repetition (not (bad) counting sex, or hemorrhoids, and other unpleasant things...) that helps us remember?
But, is there any proof that Alzheimer's victims forgot how to have sex? Swear, etc? (Not talking about those with stroke-like side-effects such as total motor or vocal or sensory failure...)
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Poor wording, I suppose, but it sounds like they're trying to reduce memory retention. At any rate, this is a really cool prospect, and I'd love to see it pan out, but it's not directed at all. The guy had a memory from 30 years ago shoot up, but it's not like he chose that one specifically. His memory improved over the next few days, but I'd personally be surprised if the six in tests had too much more than "I remember things better now thanks to th- OH MY GOD I FAILED FIFTH GRADE MATH!"
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
It wasn't lost then just misplaced,..
"not (bad) counting sex, or hemorrhoids, and other unpleasant things...) "
WTF!?! Sex... Hemorrhoids....... Unplesasent things... I don't want to know...
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What? Did they forget what they were looking for in the first place?
Have gnu, will travel.
However, I also have PTSD, which is at least in part an overstimulation of the amygdala. And I've dealt with the unpleasant effects of psych meds which doctors hand out like candy without really seeming to understand their full effects.
When tinkering with the brain, unintended consequences can be severe, and nobody seems to really give a crap about those unintended consequences except for the person who has to deal with them.
Leave well enough alone is usually the best motto when it comes to the noggin, unless your life and disability is too intolerable so you're willing to take any chance.
This space available.
So, this is reminding me a lot of "Terminal Man" which was written back in the 80s. Basically, they put electrodes into a guy's head to stop him from having psychotic episodes, or maybe just violent epilepsy (it was a long time ago). Some of the electrodes brought back memories. Was Crichton just writing that based on theories in the field that hadn't been tested, or has this been around for a while?
Anyway, in the end, the shocks made the guy become murderous permanently, and he killed a bunch of people, so I think we should watch out for that, although if we keep on just doing it to obese 50 year olds, that might be less of a problem.
Sounds legit to me. But what about this non-invasive infra-red hat: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=510172&in_page_id=1774 Same thing without all the blood? If infrared diodes boosts my momory, I want em implanted permanently under my skin!
"Good news for people with Alzheimer's and those that just forgot where he left his car's key."
Also good news for those who done forgot them gramma'h rules from the schoolin' days.
Slashdot reader figures out how to cure moronic editors. One web surfer meant to delete Digg, but accidentally deleted Slashdot from his bookmarks. Trials are currently underway...
while not wanting to bring the mood down, innit funny how much R&D goes into "curing" Western maladies like erectile dysfunction and pickled brain cells while millions die each year from neglected diseases ... just my whine for the day folks. Carry on.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/117902419/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 Memory enhancement induced by hypothalamic/fornix deep brain stimulation
Clement Hamani, MD, PhD 1, Mary Pat McAndrews, PhD 2, Melanie Cohn, PhD 2, Michael Oh, MD 1, Dominik Zumsteg, MD 3, Colin M. Shapiro, MD, PhD, FRCPC 4, Richard A. Wennberg, MD, FRCPC 3, Andres M. Lozano, MD, PhD, FRCSC
Bilateral hypothalamic deep brain stimulation was performed to treat a patient with morbid obesity. We observed, quite unexpectedly, that stimulation evoked detailed autobiographical memories. Associative memory tasks conducted in a double-blinded on versus off manner demonstrated that stimulation increased recollection but not familiarity-based recognition, indicating a functional engagement of the hippocampus. Electroencephalographic source localization showed that hypothalamic deep brain stimulation drove activity in mesial temporal lobe structures. This shows that hypothalamic stimulation in this patient modulates limbic activity and improves certain memory functions. Ann Neurol 2008;63:119-123
Received: 5 July 2007; Revised: 31 August 2007; Accepted: 4 October 2007
Might as well stick them in their brains. Based on the way they vote I'm assuming most lack the parts you were suggesting we should jolt.
... who did you say it was again?
Have gnu, will travel.
We on ./ are more interested in reversing hair loss..
I was going to post something relevant, but I forgot to RTFA.
"This is the first time anyone has had electrodes planted in the brain which have been shown to improve memory."
Well, consequently it's first time anyone tried to plant electrodes in the brain to treat obesity either. Yeah, I guess, you can call that an "accident"!
"I went to a fat camp, and all i got was an electrode in my brain and this lousy T-shirt."
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
When I first read the heading, I read it as "Scientists Rediscover Way to Reverse Memory Loss"
1178161 is prime...
With sufficient memory loss, every post becomes first.
Grain of salt time: this is from the Daily Mail.
I, for one, haven't forgotten that they have far less credibility than even Slashdot as a reputable news source.
So can I place a patent on this? Its not prior art... yet...
Now where did I leave those car keys...... KAAAZZZEEERRTT, Oh yeah, there they are!
Over the years, he's taken quite a selection of prescribed psychoactive drugs, in varying dosages. Interestingly, my observation is that the personality distortions my friend has shown have always been more closely tied to dosage factors than which drug he's been taking. I've seen him stark, raving mad - enraged - depressed - zombied - manic (uncontrollably so); and I've seen him quite normal. Seems that once they get his dosage down pat, however, it still needs re-tweaking as his mind/body adapt to the chemical changes.
There were a couple years there where I didn't want to even hear about him. Even knowing that it was not his choice but the medications he is obliged to take, it made it hard to preserve our friendship at times.
I totally agree that a person's personality is strongly tied to their body chemistry. I have personal experience with chemotherapy, a variety of psycho-active drugs, and kidney failure. What I was amazed to discover was how much these changes to my body chemistry altered my personality. I am mostly back to my old self, but with new respect for how different I could be and how much of personality is based on chemistry.
As computer nerds we are likely to think of the brain as a Turing computer. The hardware and environment don't matter, just the programming. So we assume that someone's personality is entirely determined by the capacity of their brain computer, their experiences, and conscious decisions.
But the brain's mental state is sensitive to the chemical environment influenced by the other organs and glands. Seeing how changes in kidney function changed my mental abilities, I think maybe the Egyptians were not so silly to consider the kidney and liver to be as important as the brain for carrying a person's soul.
The experience has also made me more tolerant of other personalities. I could be those people even with my own brain but a different set of organs. I wonder if there have been any studies of personality change after liver and kidney transplants. What would happen if we could someday perform a brain transplant. Should we consider the soul and identity to transfer with the brain or with the body, or is a new combination a new person?
Head? Ass? For politicians these converge...
Red to red, black to black. Switch it on, but stand well back.
Finally, less dupes on Slashdot!
Speaking as someone with crap memory as a result of a head injury, I wouldn't risk it.
As someone also with crappy memory due to a head injury, I survived a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI, I'd be willing to take part in a study to investigate whether something like this would help me.
fortunately most of the effects in my case were temporary, but I still have problems.
Unfortunately unless there's a breakthrough more than likely in my case it's permanent.
When tinkering with the brain, unintended consequences can be severe, and nobody seems to really give a crap about those unintended consequences except for the person who has to deal with them.
I look at it the oppose to you, because of people like you people like me are being prevented from seeing possible breakthroughs in neurology, oh and cancer treatment.
Leave well enough alone is usually the best motto when it comes to the noggin, unless your life and disability is too intolerable so you're willing to take any chance.
Not only is my life so intolerable I'd be willing to take a change, but I'd leap at such a chance. If I weren't so chickenshit I'd have ended my suffering years ago.
FalconShould there be a Law?
So, I guess this will be the end of dupes on /. I feel like I'm losing one of the features that makes slashdot so special...
Sign me up for one, say maybe Marvin's.
So Long, and thanks for the fish.
FalconShould there be a Law?
...Baywatch Reruns?
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Uh oh....what about selective memory loss? Because if so, I'm going to need a new legal strategy.
Don't they watch cartoons? They just have to smack the patient really hard on the top of his head.
Suddenly he regains his memories. Duh!
Memory loss is the least of your problems if you have Alzheimer's disease.
Just looking at the form in front of me (am at an ADRC) possible impacts range from physical to congnitive to neurological, including tremors, slowness, balance, orientation, judgement and problem solving, withdrawing from community, personal hygiene, delusions, hallucinations, agitation, aggression, depression, dysphoria, anxiety, euphoria, elation, apathy, indifference, disinhibition, irritability, lability, aberrant motor behavior, sleepwalking, appetite, language, falls, gait disorder, and the list goes on.
So, while this might be good for certain people, it definitely is not doing anything about plaque buildup in your brain, neural tangles, or any of the other problems that lead to you dying from this in a fairly short number of years.
But it might help if you just have memory problems.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Get back to us when you hit 50. Me, I can stand 100 years with a wheelchair, though I'm not keen on being dependent on family. Took care of my grandmother gladly, but knowing the sacrifices I had to make for that, I wouldn't want someone to do it for me.
I'm kind of like that myself. I used to volunteer helping people with disabilities but now that I have one myself I hate needing help.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Professor Lozano, a neurosurgery expert at Toronto Western Hospital in Canada, said: "This is the first time anyone has had electrodes planted in the brain which have been shown to improve memory."
How many other times has this doctor planted electrodes into somebody's brain causing other, less positive effects?
Carkeys forget YOU!
eom
I don't need
Maybe now the military will be able to remember to find all their missing warheads...
...hair loss (I mind that way more than white hairs) and prostate problems (especially), I'd be happier than a pig in sh*t. Yes, I know, egotistical (sp?), but aging affects more than just memory in men. Things you used to take for granted, like simply going for a leak without thinking about it, can become a f*cking ordeal when your body starts falling apart in your 40s.
Crap, I hate getting old.
How about the scrotum? Not that I'm implying this will make the politicians grow a set of balls, oh no; just that, if it's good enough for Gitmo, it's good enough for the White House.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
the ability to form short-term memories is far more important to day to day living that the ability to retrieve stuff from long term storage.
My mother had a series of small strokes (watch your blood pressure folks, and that's the extent of my preaching,) that left her unable to form short term memories.
It has completely devastated the woman she was and left the shell that's left unable to live day to day because she can't keep a memory intact long enough to not repeat herself.
Its painful and its even worse than Alzheimer's because she's perfectly healthy otherwise and not suffering the other debilitations of age.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Any hope of this allowing the /. editors to remeber what was greenlighted?
Now you'll have to pee in a cup before SAT exams and Jeopardy tournaments. Wonder if kids fry their brains on a marathon caffeine study binge followed up with a hit of this before their exams.
Even neater is the possibility of temporarily removing memories and then bringing them back later, something like spy work or undercover jobs. Give someone valuable information, wipe it... get them to negotiate with someone and agree to remember it after payment is sent. Then they give him a shot of the stuff... whooops, been screwed, he never know it at all! Dead spy... happy rich boss. Lotta potential here.
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
(obligatory: not that there's anything wrong with that...)
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
They was giving me ten thousand watts a day, you know, and I'm hot to trot! The next woman takes me on's gonna light up like a pinball machine and pay off in silver dollars!
I thought the title said: "Scientists Discover Way to Reverse Money Loss". Sigh.
These folks just sold me a fantastic Mars vacation package. I'm going to be a spy and meet a sleazy brunette.
Sincerely,
Douglas Quaid
P.S. Do you know where I can find Kuato?
You see, I've had this Sheryl Crow song stuck in my head for a week now...
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I have problems with memory, because I have intractable epilepsy with a cluster of seizures every few weeks. Nobody knows what causes them; it's not an aneurysm or anything like that, because MRI, PET, and CAT images all look normal. My neurologist said I was apparently born with a "wiring abnormality", which actually sounds kind of cool. So I get a chance every few weeks to experience recovery from severe brain trauma, of varying degrees, with no permanent physical injury. It severely impairs memory and recall, but after you go through it a couple hundred times you remember enough to get a pretty good perspective of what recovery from brain trauma is like. And you can pick up a couple of insights about how brains work and what you experience when your brain has to reconstruct its state from scratch after a hard reset.
First of all, one thing I've realized about being stupid is that it's hard to recognize your own stupidity. (Which you might guess.) A seizure can trigger an IQ drop of 80-90 points and it takes a good part of a week for it to drift back up to 160 or 170 or whatever it is. I sometimes think it's over and that I have all my wits back, but then three days later I have to rewrite all the shitty code I've been writing for the past few days. It's generally well formed, looks OK, and is easy to read, but it somehow lacks direction and it turns out to do nothing useful.
Short term memory is consolidated into long term memory through some pipeline that involves several days of processing. If it gets disrupted by an episode of brain trauma, the result is retrograde amnesia: memories formed during the previous few days are damaged and dim. Stuff learned then will usually have to be relearned. There is no hard edge to it; there are memories right up to the point of failure- but they get dimmer and dimmer up to the day of the seizure, which is just a fog of blurry memories. I can actually teach people things that just a few days later they'll have to teach back to me.
The most terrifying times are when short term memory doesn't work at all, when things go in one ear and out the other. That always produces mind-numbing terror that never stops; you're perpetually surprised by it. I can tolerate it once in a while, since it's brief and not permanent, but if I ever get diagnosed with Alzheimers or a degenerative dementia I'll make sure there's a gun in the house. My grandmother is like this now and she is always scared whenever I see her. She doesn't recognize any of us anymore. This was a really proud woman most of her life, a little snooty even, and now she doesn't even know where the toilet is in her house.
Occasionally a seizure can produce a fugue, where you wander around in a daze, totally incoherent. This happened to an epileptic friend of mine just last month- she was walking around Salt Lake City in a fugue, underdressed in 7 degree weather at 3 AM when the cops found her. When this happens, it's not always obvious what's wrong. I usually just think I'm looking for something. What, I can't remember, but it doesn't occur to me to think about it. It's easy to get lost, and I've found myself in some pretty weird places. One time (back when I had a car) I got lost driving home from work in a fugue. I didn't hit anybody or run any lights, just like my code looks OK and compiles, but the longer it takes to do something, the more likely it is to get screwed up.
Generally Alzheimer's affects short-term memory initially. Of course it gets worse and worse, and longer and longer-term memories go. The patients usually retain the longest memories, speaking, eating, etc., until they are almost immobile.
Or perhaps they could use it on Princess Diana's bodyguard, who can't remember anything about the crash that killed her.
Purple Ninja will have a better defense now!
for these guys who lost their internet
That is what you were going to say.
Memory enhancement induced by hypothalamic/fornix deep brain stimulation
Perhaps if the medical establishment took Cranial Electrotherapy Stimulation (CES) more seriously instead of regarding it as Russian pseudoscience similar findings might come from such non-invasive technology. CES has been shown to be of use in depression and anxiety, but there are also anecdotal reports of improved cognitive function. It does make me wonder. I've been meaning to try CES for a while but the units are expensive and require a RX (at least in the US). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cranial_electrotherapy_stimulation
Great news!
Now quick, before I forget it, where do I sign up?
Now if they could only remember where the hypothalamus is located.....
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
My wife used to work with alzheimer patients and described it like this:
Alzheimer's is not forgetting where your keys are, that is being ascent minded.
Alzheimer's is forgetting what you keys are and what they do.
-- Hail Eris
A man goes to a doctor. The doctor examines him, tells him "You've got cancer and Alzheimer's." The man goes "Thank God I don't have cancer."
Now where did I put that button?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The article is about brain implants, not ingestible drugs, dumbasses.
With regards to the "fake" tag, let's reference the originating article, shall we: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080129/full/news.2008.538.html Deep brain stimulation has actually been used since 1993 in patients with Parkinson's disease to stop tremors and allow them to use their muscles again. The next step taken was in psychiatric disorders; there was a case where they helped stop the obsessive thoughts in an OCD patient, and there was work being done looking at the effects of stimulating certain areas of the brain of people with clinical depression. Most of that is in a related Nature article you need a subscription to read, from July of 2005. It's linked in the article I linked to, if you have access to a subscription to Nature. So this sort of "deep brain stimulation" has been going on for a long time. The novelty here is that they're looking at the effects of stimulating different areas to target different brain functions. In the article regarding memory, they accidentally stimulated the fornix, which is a fiber bundle that leads to the hippocampus, and has been closely linked with memory since the case of HM back in the 1950s, who had surgery to remove the hippocampus in order to relieve his epilepsy. The seizures, which had been originating in the hippocampus, stopped, but he lost the ability to form new memories, much like the guy in Memento. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_(patient) Deep brain stimulation has even been used to treat epilepsy, because the regularity of the stimulation helps to calm the erratic firing characteristic of a seizure. The point is, the idea of stimulating selected areas of the brain to get a desired effect isn't new. Neither is the idea that a small area of the brain is involved in formation and recall of memories. The interesting thing here is that stimulating that area can lead to recall. However, there's still a long way to go before we can say it's a "cure" for Alzheimers, if that's even possible.
Shouldn't the headline read: "Scientists Re-Discover Way to Reverse Memory Loss" ?
One man's constant is another man's variable.
Look into dietary contributions to seizures, in particular, the contributions of dietary "free glutamate" and aspartame. Aspartame is easy to avoid, but free glutamate is much more difficult to avoid as it can be found in everything from parmesan, to soy sauce, to modified corn starch. Google it for more information on it and for lists of the ingredients you can find it in.
You will find a large number of studies showing the neurological side-effects of high levels of dietary free glutamate, and if you search carefully you will even find a number of studies about the contributions of this to the triggering of seizures. (You will also find a number of industry funded studies, with quality reminiscent of the "smoking doesn't cause cancer" days, which attempt to assure everyone of the safety of free glutamate.)
I'm not saying this is a root cause for you, but rather just a known trigger in people who are already predisposed to frequent seizures. From the story you told, I'm sure you would appreciate any reduction you can get. Watching your diet carefully takes a bit of work, but if it helps in your case, it sounds like it would certainly be worth the effort.
Best of luck.
My personal motto.
My mistake then.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
MY son had similar signs; after much questing, he was cured by the Borrow Neurological Institute http://www.stjosephs-phx.org/Medical_Services/086969 in Phoenix, AZ. He had a very tiny lesion in his hypocampus. With very advanced micro techniques the DRS zapped a tiny part of his brain and he is now fully normal after over 40 years of this *$%#)*&^%&. Mac Haskell
It's a scary, sad day when you discover your wife posting comments on