Brain stimulation shown to boost memory — electrical brain stimulation, that is:
He and his team asked the students to learn a list of paired words in a standard memory test before they fell asleep. The researchers stimulated their brain while they slept. After they woke up, the students had to recall the words they had memorized.If the currents were applied to the scalp during deep sleep, the first few hours of nocturnal sleep, the students recalled a greater number of words than if they had been given a sham brain stimulation.
“This is proof that this slow oscillation has a real function during sleep — to build and consolidate memory,” said Born.
“It is an eight percent increase overall. This is a striking increase,” he added.
The students did not feel any sensation from the currents to the frontal cortex of the brain or any adverse side effects. The currents forced the brain more into the deep slow-wave sleep to improve the memory function, according to the scientists.
Memory function in the medical students was already very good before they received the brain stimulation but the currents managed to improve it.