Targeted electrical stimulation in patients with traumatic brain injury led to an average 19 % boost in recalling words .
AI-Guided Brain Stimulation Aids Memory in Traumatic Brain Injury
Targeted electrical stimulation in patients with traumatic brain injury led to an average 19 % boost in recalling words .
7
Traumatic brain injury ( TBI ) has disabled 1 % to 2 % of the population , and one of the most common disabilities among patients is problems with short-term memory . Electrical stimulation has emerged as a viable tool to improve brain function in people with other neurological disorders .
Now , a new study in the journal Brain Stimulation shows that targeted electrical stimulation in patients with traumatic brain injury led to an average 19 % boost in recalling words .
Led by University of Pennsylvania psychology professor Michael Jacob Kahana , a team of neuroscientists studied TBI patients with implanted electrodes , analyzed neural data as patients studied words , and used a machine learning algorithm to predict momentary memory lapses . Other lead authors included Wesleyan University psychology professor Youssef Ezzyat and Penn research scientist Paul Wanda .
“ The last decade has seen tremendous advances in the use of brain stimulation as a therapy for several neurological and psychiatric disorders including epilepsy , Parkinson ’ s disease , and depression ,” Kahana says . “ Memory loss , however , represents a huge burden on society . We lack effective therapies for the 27 million Americans suffering .”
Study co-author Ramon Diaz-Arrastia , director of the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinical Research Center at Penn Medicine , says the technology Kahana and his team developed delivers “ the right stimulation at the right time , informed by the wiring of the individual ’ s brain and that individual ’ s successful memory retrieval .”
He says the top causes of TBI are motor vehicle accidents , which are decreasing , and falls , which are rising because of the aging population . The next most common causes are assaults and head injuries from participation in contact sports .
This new study builds off the previous work of Ezzyat , Kahana , and their collaborators . Publishing their findings in 2017 , they showed that stimulation delivered when memory is expected to fail can improve memory , whereas stimulation administered during periods of good functioning worsens memory . The stimulation in that study was open-loop ,