Researchers' experiment in reversing Alzheimer, yields positive result

There’s no specific treatment for amnesia, as several factors can trigger it. All healthcare practitioners can do to help the situation is form a treatment plan by focusing on the underlying causes that make all the difference. Amnesia caused by conditions that permanently disrupt how the brain works, like cerebral hypoxia, brain tumors, disease, or other neurodegenerative diseases, is more likely to be permanent.

On the other hand, memory loss triggered by head trauma, stress, or illness, which affects how one retrieves memories, may improve over time. This potentially allows cognitive impairment caused by head impact to be clinically reversed. Adaptable brain A previous study by a Georgetown research team found that the brain adapts to repeated head impacts by changing how the synapses operate.

Depending on how often these head impacts occur, it could eventually cause trouble remembering and forming new memories. A group of researchers then decided to conduct another study to explore the possibility of a reversal of amnesia triggered by head trauma. This study’s senior investigator, Mark Burns, PhD, a professor and Vice Chair in Georgetown’s Department of Neuroscience and director of the Laboratory for Brain Injury and Dementia, said in a : “Our research gives us hope that we can design treatments to return the head impact brain to its normal condition and recover cognitive function in humans that have poor memory caused by repeated head impacts.” Brain's response to repeated head trauma Most of the research previously conducted with a similar aim has been in with a degenerative brain disease found in people with a history of repetitive head impact.

However, Burns noted that this study aimed to “understand how the brain changes in response to the low level head impact that many young football players regularly experience.” Two groups of genetically modified mice were used for this study as they enabled the researchers to see the memory neurons (engram) involved in forming new memories.

The researchers created a new memory for the mice by giving them a test they had never seen before. The first group was exposed to a high frequency of mild head impacts for one week, while the other group was controlled and didn’t face the impact. A week later, the group of controlled mice was able to activate their memory engram after seeing the room where they first learned the memory, as these memory neurons help associate memories with places.

However, the impacted mice could not recall the newly created memory, which helped the team conclude the cause of the amnesia. To reverse this, the researchers used lasers to help activate the memory engrams in the impacted mice, and they got the necessary results. Reversing head injury This technique used for this study by the Georgetown University Medical Center researchers, in collaboration with Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, might not be translatable to humans as it is quite invasive.

However, the study provided evidence to prove that amnesia caused by head injury could be reversed by activating certain memory neurons. Burns added: “We are currently studying a number of non invasive techniques to try to communicate to the brain that it is no longer in danger, and to open a window of plasticity that can reset the brain to its former state.”.