When a brain injury impairs memory, a pulse of electricity may help

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/08/09/ [login to see] /when-a-brain-injury-impairs-memory-a-pulse-of-electricity-may-help
If you've ever had trouble finding your keys or remembering what you had for breakfast, you know that short-term memory is far from perfect.

For people who've had a traumatic brain injury (TBI), though, recalling recent events or conversations can be a major struggle.

"We have patients whose family cannot leave them alone at home because they will turn on the stove and forget to turn it off," says Dr. Ramon Diaz-Arrastia, who directs the Traumatic Brain Injury Clinical Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

So Arrastia and a team of scientists have been testing a potential treatment. It involves delivering a pulse of electricity to the brain at just the right time.

And it worked in a study of eight people with moderate or severe TBIs, the team reports in the journal Brain Stimulation. A precisely timed pulse to a brain area just behind the ear improved recall by about 20 percent and reduced the person's memory deficit by about half.