DARPA just invested $37.5 million into memory-restoration technology

Two teams creating devices that stimulate the brain to restore memory function have been granted $37.5 million by DARPA to develop the technology. Both will initially work with people with epilepsy who have been given implants to locate where their seizures originate. The researchers will reuse the data gathered during this process to monitor other brain activity, such as the patterns that occur when the brain stores and retrieves memories. One team will then attempt to map these patterns by recording the brain activity of epilepsy sufferers with mild memory problems while they play a computer game about remembering things. The pattern differences between the best and worst scores among these patents will be used to develop an algorithm for a personalized stimulation pattern to keep the brain performing at an optimal level.

US researchers are banking on the hope that electrical devices implanted in the brain might one day restore memory to people who have lost it. On 9 July, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded a total of US$37.5 million to two research teams to study how memories are formed and retrieved and to develop devices to stimulate these processes in the brain. HereNature offers a preview of the research to come from these awards. DARPA is one of three US agencies to receive funding this year through the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which President Barack Obama announced in April 2013. DARPA has said that it plans to use its share of the money — $50 million this year — to fund study of brain disorders common to soldiers and veterans, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and memory dysfunction caused by traumatic brain injury. In May the agency awarded $56 million to support two teams in creating brain-stimulation devices to treat disorders such as PTSD and depression, and to map the neural circuitry involved in these conditions. The latest round of grants is focused on the use of such devices to restore memory function. Both teams will initially be working with people with epilepsy who have entered hospital to have electrodes temporarily implanted into their brains to help locate where their seizures originate. The researchers will ‘piggyback’ off the implants, using them to monitor other brain activity, such as the electrical patterns that occur when the brain is storing or retrieving a memory.