Stimulating The Brain Can Bring Back Forgotten Short-Term Memories, University of Notre Dame Study
Some hopeful news for those who can’t remember new people’s names: stimulating the brain with a magnetic pulse can bring back forgotten short-term memories, as long as we know that we’ll need that information later.
Scientists used to think that we had to keep consciously thinking about something, like a new name, to remember it short-term. From the point of view of a brain scan, this means that all the neurons, or brain cells, involved in remembering that name would fire continuously and light up on the scan. But in a study published today in the journal Science, researchers led by University of Notre Dame psychologist Nathan Rose discovered that people remember things short-term even when the neurons aren’t firing. This suggests that short-term memory works in several different ways. And crucially, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive way of stimulating the brain, can even bring that memory back.
Scientists used to think that we had to keep consciously thinking about something, like a new name, to remember it short-term. From the point of view of a brain scan, this means that all the neurons, or brain cells, involved in remembering that name would fire continuously and light up on the scan. But in a study published today in the journal Science, researchers led by University of Notre Dame psychologist Nathan Rose discovered that people remember things short-term even when the neurons aren’t firing. This suggests that short-term memory works in several different ways. And crucially, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a non-invasive way of stimulating the brain, can even bring that memory back.