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BOB HIRSHON (host):
Fighting memory loss with magnetism. I’m Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
(Gigi audio clip)
In the film Gigi, Maurice Chevalier had difficulty with “precise memory”: that’s the neural pathway that lets us remember the shirt we wore when we graduated, the color of a rented car, or spatial cues that help us find our way to a location. In the journal Current Biology, Northwestern neuroscientist Joel Voss and his colleagues describe using non-invasive electromagnetic brain stimulation to improve precise memory in volunteers.
JOEL VOSS (Northwestern University):
There are quite a lot of disorders in which this particular type of memory is disrupted, so everything from Alzheimer’s disease to brain injuries to some psychiatric problems like schizophrenia.
HIRSHON:
The goal is to develop a safe treatment for debilitating memory loss. I’m Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
Story by Bob Hirshon