Researchers at Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, have accidentally discovered areas of the brain that produces vivid recollection of events happening more than 30 years ago.
The discovery occurred while they were treating a patient for morbid obesity, and trying to identify potential appetite suppressant sites in the hypothalamus by stimulating the electrodes that had been implanted there. The patient suddenly reported vivid images of 'deja vu', describing scenes of himself with a group of friends in a park, an event that had taken place when he was about 20. As the stimulation increased, the detail of the recollection increased. These sensations were later replicated in a double blind study.
In ongoing treatment after the patient was released from hospital, they found that continuing stimulation of the area improved the patient's learning ability and the ability to remember unrelated paired objects.
The full results will be published in Annals of Neurology in the January 2008 issue.
Another step forward in understanding the complex machine we all depend on. It will be interesting to see if this 'stimulation' can possibly be produced by a drug of some sort, as that will have a massive improvement on a large number of people's lives. Not only improving life for aging individuals, but certainly allowing everyone to improve studying, researching, knowledge gathering etc.
We could all become sources of millions of useless facts :)
More here.
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