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."

Comments

Re:Michael Crichton's "terminal man"

[mmell]

Mr. Crichton's work was based on sound, confirmed science, dating back to the '40's and earlier - even by the turn of the century, medical science was beginning to understand that direct, external stimuli to the brain resulted in perceptual activities - memories, smells, emotions, etc. - but again, I don't think there was a great deal of truly scientific work in the field until the '40's and '50's.

And the shocks didn't make him murderous - the shocks conditioned his brain to trigger a psychomotor epileptic seizure (to experience the pleasure of a shock) - eventually, the conditioning caused seizures which overrode the neural pacemaker's ability to moderate his brain's electrical activity.

Original research abstract

[FleaPlus]

FYI, here's the original abstract for the research the news article is based on:

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

A free and friendly tip

[Anonymous Coward]

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.