Noninvasive brain stimulation may boost memory in Alzheimer’s patients, others

by Jacob Fuller

Bethany Roberts, FISM News

 

A new study testing transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), a form of noninvasive brain stimulation, shows a month-long boost in memory in a group of elderly people.

The study brings an air of anticipation with it for further research to help those suffering from cognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer’s disease or dementia.

tACS involves a cap that is embedded with small electrodes, which emit a weak electrical current that passes from one electrode to the other and electrically stimulates the brain. The stimulation can “increase the excitability of targeted parts of the brain. Pairing it with individualized, task-specific, intense rehabilitation can lead to greater improvements in function than rehabilitation alone,” according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

“It’s an unfortunate fact of life that as we age we all become a little more forgetful,” Robert Reinhart, the director of the Cognitive & Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory at Boston University,  said. “Memory deficits impair our activities of daily living, planning, decision making, cognition, learning, and that can generally have a negative effect of diminishing quality of life.”

The study, published on Monday in the Nature Neuroscience journal, included 150 people ages 65 to 88 who did not have any diagnosed neurological disorders. The cap delivered the electrical current to the participants’ brains while the researchers asked them to repeat five lists of 20 words.

This process was repeated for 20 minutes every day for four days. Forty of the participants received placebo treatment in order to show the variance. The results of the study show that memory performance improved by about 50% to 65%, which translates to participants recalling four to six more words on average compared to those receiving the placebo.

Reinhart, one of the authors of the study, said current and future studies are looking at the use of tACS for the treatment of schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and even obsessive-compulsive disorder. The use of this technology may also help memory in people without any known impairments.

Participants in the study with the worst cognitive function at the beginning showed the most improvement during the study and one month later. The researchers said this may help lay the groundwork for a clinical trial for those with Alzheimer’s disease.

“These brain stimulation technologies are fairly new, and the present study is among the first that shows such improvements,” Reinhart said. “The findings would have to be replicated in larger samples and once the effects are consistently observed, this kind of treatment could be combined with existing treatments and integrated into a clinical setting.”

Noninvasive brain stimulation is painless and safe, it has minimal side effects, and it has been used in thousands of people worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. In fact, a co-author of the study, Shrey Grover, said that patients may only experience some itching and tingling at the beginning and end of the treatment.

More than 16 million people in the United States are living with cognitive impairment, according to the Family Caregiver Alliance. Age is the greatest negative factor for cognitive impairment, and the number of people living with this problem is expected to grow drastically as the Baby Boomer generation passes the age of 65.

An estimated 5.1 million Americans aged 65 years or older may currently have Alzheimer’s disease, the most well-known form of cognitive impairment. This number may rise to 13.2 million by 2050, according to a study published in the National Library of Medicine.

Confirmation of this new study’s results brings hope for families with members suffering from dementia. While the research is still in its early stages, additional studies will determine the longevity of the results.

According to Grover, these new technologies may become part of a “multi-faceted approach to treating age-related memory loss.”

“Any efforts to remain cognitively engaged are always welcome and definitely something we should be doing, regardless,” Grover said.

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