This is all well and good, especially to help persons with damaged brains. One concern is when evil doctors decide that a person has a damaged brain and needs an implant to bypass his damaged brain. But the person has no brain damage. That pattern appears with criminal psychiatrists on occasion for personal, political and economic purposes. Frequently politicians, like those in the White House say of persons they disagree with, "They are the crazies." Insanity is often attributed to persons in Cambridge, MA, on university campuses if they disagree with the dominant liberal dogma. "Repairing damaged brains" too can be used for harm. What, if any, protocol exists to prevent abuses of this capability? Researchers with high standards and unquestionable rectitude, seldom think of the use of new technology for evil. They cannot imagine anyone using for evil, what they created or discovered to help others.
[From article]
When your brain receives the sensory input, it creates a memory in the form of a complex electrical signal that travels through multiple regions of the hippocampus, the memory center of the brain. At each region, the signal is re-encoded until it reaches the final region as a wholly different signal that is sent off for long-term storage.
If there's damage at any region that prevents this translation, then there is the possibility that long-term memory will not be formed. That's why an individual with hippocampal damage (for example, due to Alzheimer's disease) can recall events from a long time ago -- things that were already translated into long-term memories before the brain damage occurred -- but have difficulty forming new long-term memories.
Song and Berger found a way to accurately mimic how a memory is translated from short-term memory into long-term memory, using data obtained by Deadwyler and Hampson, first from animals, and then from humans. Their prosthesis is designed to bypass a damaged hippocampal section and provide the next region with the correctly translated memory.
[. . .]
In hundreds of trials conducted with nine patients, the algorithm accurately predicted how the signals would be translated with about 90 percent accuracy.
"Being able to predict neural signals with the USC model suggests that it can be used to design a device to support or replace the function of a damaged part of the brain," Hampson said.
Next, the team will attempt to send the translated signal back into the brain of a patient with damage at one of the regions in order to try to bypass the damage and enable the formation of an accurate long-term memory.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150929142524.htm
Scientists to bypass brain damage by re-encoding memories
New prosthesis aims to help people living with memory loss
Date:September 29, 2015
Source:University of Southern California
Summary:Researchers are testing a prosthesis that translates short-term memories into longer-term ones, with the potential to bypass damaged portions of the brain.
