Put your thinking cap on

Working memory is where your mind keeps temporary information, and has been described as the "sketch pad of the mind". You need your working memory to write down a phone number as someone reads it out to you. Problem-solving, mathematical calculations and decision-making all involve working memory too. Robert Reinhart, an assistant professor at Boston University, and one of the researchers, says: "It's essentially where consciousness lives." 

Working memory declines naturally with age. But the older adults' performance improved with brain stimulation. Dr Reinhart said: "We can bring back the more superior working memory function that you had when you were much younger. 

The team at Boston University, in the US, gave people in their sixties and seventies the working memory of someone in their twenties. The effect lasted at least 50 minutes after the stimulation stopped. But larger studies are now needed to see if stimulation could help people in the "real world" or in treating brain diseases like Alzheimer's.

According to a podcast on the Financial Times, the 50 minutes was how long the study was scheduled to last, so no more measurements were taken after this. The researchers expect the effect to persist for "hours at least".

The study showed that brainwaves become out of sync - like musicians giving a disjointed performance - as we age. The team at Boston University started by recording people's brainwaves with an electroencephalogram. They used electricity stimulation - specifically high definition transcranial alternating current - to strengthen and resynchronise the brainwaves. 

Dr Reinhart says: "I think it is possible to sort of turbocharge even normal, healthy, cognitive functioning people, including young people. "But the largest improvements appear in the people with the greatest deficit at baseline... people who are struggling the most."

I wonder what other effects might be possible. For instance it's possible to induce blindsight by wearing magnets.Perhaps a Penfield mood organ or a dream machine is not so outlandish...

Precise brain stimulation boosts memory

Using electricity to precisely stimulate the brain can boost people's working memory, a study suggests. The team at Boston University, in the US, gave people in their sixties and seventies the working memory of someone in their twenties. The effect lasted at least 50 minutes after the stimulation stopped.