American Security Today May 2017 Digital Magazine American Security Today May 2017 Digital Magazine | Page 57

Volume 12
May 2017 Edition
TNT Advanced Pace
& Effectiveness of
Cognitive Skills
Training
The primary goal
of the Targeted
Neuroplasticity
Training (TNT)
program is to un-
derstand the ba-
sic mechanisms
linking neurostim-
ulation to plastic-
ity. Applying that
knowledge, TNT
technology will be
designed to safely
and precisely stimu-
late peripheral nerves
to control synaptic plas-
ticity at optimal points dur-
ing cognitive skills training.
In March 2016, DARPA announced
the Targeted Neuroplasticity Training
(TNT) program, an effort to enlist the body’s pe-
ripheral nervous system to achieve something
that has long been considered the brain’s do-
main alone: facilitation of learning.
Work on TNT has now begun.
The crux of the wide-ranging program is to iden-
tify optimal and safe neurostimulation methods
for activating “synaptic plasticity”—a natural pro-
cess in the brain, pivotal to learning, that involves
the strengthening or weakening of the junctions
between two neurons—then build those meth-
ods into enhanced training regimens that accel-
erate the acquisition of cognitive skills.
TNT was inspired by recent research showing
that stimulation of certain peripheral nerves can
activate regions of the brain involved with learn-
ing.
Such signals can potentially trigger synaptic
plasticity by releasing neurochemicals that reor-
ganize neural connections in response to spe-
cific experiences.
TNT researchers will strive to identify the physi-
ological mechanisms that might allow this natural
process to be enhanced using electrical stimula-
tion of peripheral nerves, making the brain more
adaptive during key points in the learning pro-
cess.
Doug Weber, TNT
Program Manager
“DARPA is ap-
proaching the
study of syn-
aptic plasticity
from multiple
angles to de-
termine wheth-
er there are safe and responsible ways to en-
hance learning and accelerate training for skills
relevant to national security missions,” said Doug
Weber, the TNT Program Manager.
DARPA is funding eight efforts at seven insti-
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