A team of neuroscientists led by Michael Kahana, the Edmund J. and Louise W. Kahn Term Professor of Psychology and director of the Computational Memory Lab, has launched a $3.4 million project aimed at developing and testing new therapeutics for treating memory loss in patients with traumatic brain injury. The project, sponsored by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC) and awarded through the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium, will fund clinical studies of neurosurgical patients at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, UT Southwestern Medical Center, the University of Texas at San Antonio, Emory University, and Dartmouth University. It will also support basic research on electrophysiological biomarkers of memory at Penn and technology development at Nia Therapeutics, a team of visionary scientists, engineers, and medical device experts dedicated to improving human memory using safe, secure neurotechnology.

The project builds on a recently completed $24.5 million DARPA-funded study. Dr. Kahana, principal investigator of both the completed and present study, explained, “Our prior work demonstrated that stimulating the brain precisely at moments when memory is predicted to fail can boost memory by 18-20 percent. By evaluating the longer-term impacts of closed-loop brain stimulation on both memory and physiology, and also fabricating a prototype of a fully implantable device, this project will bring us closer to a therapy for treating memory loss in patients suffering from traumatic brain injury or neurological disease.” Although the present vision is to develop an implantable technology to treat memory loss, another objective of this effort is to evaluate the potential of decoding memory lapses non-invasively with a net of electrodes placed on the scalp.

Brain stimulation has recently emerged as an effective therapy for Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, and certain forms of hearing and visual impairments. Researchers are now evaluating the potential use of implanted brain stimulators to treat other indications such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorders. “Our team’s recent studies demonstrate that closed-loop brain stimulation could provide a life-changing therapy for patients with memory loss,” said Dr. Kahana. “The present USAMRDC project hopes to bring that vision closer to reality.”