{"id":319496,"date":"2019-04-11T15:06:24","date_gmt":"2019-04-11T19:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/uncategorized\/zapping-elderly-peoples-brains-supercharges-their-working-memory.php"},"modified":"2019-04-11T15:06:24","modified_gmt":"2019-04-11T19:06:24","slug":"zapping-elderly-peoples-brains-supercharges-their-working-memory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/futurism\/zapping-elderly-peoples-brains-supercharges-their-working-memory.php","title":{"rendered":"Zapping Elderly People\u2019s Brains Supercharges Their Working Memory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p><div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"158\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-assets.futurism.com\/2019\/04\/zapping-brains-elderly-working-memory-300x158.png\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image\" alt=\"Electrically stimulating the brains of people in their 60s and 70s allowed them to perform as well on working memory tasks as 20-somethings.\" style=\"padding-left:10px; padding-right: 10px;\"><\/div><h2>Memory Games<\/h2><p>Stimulating the brains&nbsp;of elderly people with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/research\/articles\/electrostimulation-can-improve-working-memory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">electrical currents<\/a> allowed them to perform just as well on a memory test as people in their 20s &mdash; a sign that researchers may have found a noninvasive way to turn back the hands of time when it comes to human memory.<\/p><p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s opening up a whole new avenue of potential research and treatment options,&rdquo; researcher&nbsp;Rob Reinhart&nbsp;said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/research\/articles\/electrostimulation-can-improve-working-memory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">press release<\/a> regarding the study, &ldquo;and we&rsquo;re super excited about it.&rdquo;<\/p><h2>All Ages<\/h2><p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41593-019-0371-x\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">study<\/a> published in the journal <em>Nature Neuroscience<\/em> on Monday, researchers from Boston University detail how they asked a group of 20-somethings and a group of people in their 60s and 70s to complete a task designed to test their working memory, which is the part of our short-term memory that we use for reasoning and decision-making.<\/p><p>Working memory typically begins declining around the time we hit 30 years old, so as expected, the people in their 20s outperformed the older group on the memory task.<\/p><h2>Remembrall<\/h2><p>However, after the members of the older group received 25 minutes of mild stimulation via scalp electrodes, they performed just as well as the younger participants&nbsp;&mdash; and the memory boost still hadn&rsquo;t subsided by the time the experiment ended 50 minutes later.<\/p><p>According to the researchers, the benefits of this noninvasive treatment&nbsp;could&nbsp;extend beyond those whose working memory has&nbsp;started to succumb to age, too. They found that stimulating the brains of the younger people who performed poorly on the task boosted their memories as well.<\/p><p><strong>READ MORE:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/research\/articles\/electrostimulation-can-improve-working-memory\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">As Memories Fade, Can We Supercharge Them Back to Life?<\/a> [Boston University]<\/p><p><strong>More on memory:&nbsp;<\/strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/brain-zap-boost-memory\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Can a Brain Zap Really Boost Your Memory?<\/a><\/em><\/p><p>The post <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/zapping-brains-elderly-working-memory\/\">Zapping Elderly People&rsquo;s Brains Supercharges Their Working Memory<\/a> appeared first on <a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\">Futurism<\/a>.<\/p><p>The rest is here:<br><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/zapping-brains-elderly-working-memory\/\" title=\"Zapping Elderly People&rsquo;s Brains Supercharges Their Working Memory\">Zapping Elderly People&rsquo;s Brains Supercharges Their Working Memory<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Memory Games Stimulating the brains\u00a0of elderly people with electrical currents allowed them to perform just as well on a memory test as people in their 20s \u2014 a sign that researchers may have found a noninvasive way to turn back the hands of time when it comes to human memory. \u201cIt\u2019s opening up a whole new avenue of potential research and treatment options,\u201d researcher\u00a0Rob Reinhart\u00a0said in a press release regarding the study, \u201cand we\u2019re super excited about it.\u201d All Ages In a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience on Monday, researchers from Boston University detail how they asked a group of 20-somethings and a group of people in their 60s and 70s to complete a task designed to test their working memory, which is the part of our short-term memory that we use for reasoning and decision-making. Working memory typically begins declining around the time we hit 30 years old, so as expected, the people in their 20s outperformed the older group on the memory task.  <a href=\"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/futurism\/zapping-elderly-peoples-brains-supercharges-their-working-memory.php\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}