Psychologist Thinks She Can Shock Senior Citizens
Into Remembering Names
The difficulty in remembering proper names is
exacerbated as we get older
Oct. 6, 2010
What senior citizen does not want to be able to remember the names of
friends and acquaintances better? Psychologist Ingrid Olson thinks
she has found the answer - she found that electric stimulation of the
right anterior temporal lobe of the brain improved the recall of proper
names in young adults by 11 percent.
Olson, a
psychologist at Temple University, dedicates her research to
understanding human memory. Her study appears this month in the journal
Neuropsychologia.
Much-studied protein
involved in aging, and tied to red wine ingredient resveratrol, is
required for recall in mice; but over-expression fails to improve
performance
Olson has now
moved on from her work with young adults and is currently conducting a
follow-up study in older adults. She is collaboration with David Wolk at
the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Memory Center.
Because memory
decline is part of normal aging, the difficulty in remembering proper
names is exacerbated as we get older. Olson predicts that the memory
gain will be even more significant among the older research subjects
because they start with a lower baseline recall level.
"We know a lot
about how to make people's memory worse, but we don't know very much
about how to make people's memory better," said Olson.
"These findings
hold promise because they point to possible therapeutic treatments for
memory rehabilitation following a stroke or other neurological insult."
A little
electrical shock does the trick
For the study,
subjects received electric stimulation to their anterior temporal lobes
while looking at photos of faces of known or semi-famous people and
landmarks. Her findings support previous research suggesting that the
anterior temporal lobes are critically involved in the retrieval of
people's names. She did not find any improvement in the recall of the
names of the landmarks.
The electrical
stimulation was delivered using transcranial direct current stimulation
(tDCS), a technique by which small electric currents (e.g., 1-2
milliamps) are applied to the scalp via electrodes. Depending on the
desired effect, the small currents can either temporarily disrupt or
enhance brain functions in a localized brain region.
In recent years,
tDCS has been rediscovered as a rehabilitation and research tool. In her
work, Olson collaborates with at the University of Pennsylvania's
Laboratory of Cognition and Neural Stimulation. Led by Branch Coslett,
the group is one of just a few in the country studying the technique.
According to
Olson, it is important to distinguish tDCS from electroconvulsive
therapy (ECT), made famous in movies such as One Flew over the Cuckoo's
Nest. ECT is used to treat serious mental illnesses by passing pulses of
approximately 1 ampere of electricity into the brain in order to provoke
a seizure.
By contrast,
tDCS uses a much smaller current (e.g. 1-2 milliamps) with effects that
typically last just one hour. The technique is painless, and there are
no known adverse effects.
"As we age, the
connections between the neurons in our brains weaken," said Olson. "In
our study, tDCS works by increasing the likelihood that the right
neurons will fire at the moment when the research subject is trying to
retrieve a particular name," she said.
"One question
for further research is whether or not repeating tDCS may lead to longer
lasting effects," she said.
Keep up with the latest news for senior citizens, baby
boomers
Oct. 6, 2010
What senior citizen does not want to be able to remember the names of
friends and acquaintances better? Psychologist Ingrid Olson thinks
she has found the answer - she found that electric stimulation of the
right anterior temporal lobe of the brain improved the recall of proper
names in young adults by 11 percent.
