Zapping the brain with electricity shown to boost older people’s short- and long-term memory
Sending weak electrical current into the brain for 20 minutes a day for four days in a row reversed declines in working and long-term memory that come with aging, scientists reported Monday in Nature Neuroscience. The researchers found that the effects lingered even after the electricity was turned off. When they tested subjects a month later, many of the improvements from the brief sessions of brain stimulation remained.
By zapping the brain in precise regions with unique frequencies of alternating current “we could improve either short-term or long-term memory separately,” psychology researcher Robert Reinhart of Boston University told reporters. “And with this intervention across four consecutive days, we could change memory and watch the benefits accumulate over those days, which is striking.”
