US Military is working on restoring lost memories with brain implants

[Image Source: DARPA]

The DARPA project has been called “Restoring Active Memory” and at the moment it has reached a stage where they are looking to commercial companies which have had some success in the past with brain implants. One such company is Medtronic, the creators of DBS implants, deep brain stimulation. They have been said to have an ability to be able to control the effects of Parkinson’s disease, in what has been described as being miraculous. The effects of the disease can often be debilitating and it is thought that Medtronic could be interested in the work from DARPA. Brown University were behind the creation of the “brain computer interface” that can be implanted into the brain and then wirelessly communicates with a computer. They are also thought to be a contender. IBM and GE could also be interested.

There are two main targets of the Restoring Active Memory project. The first of these is being able to analyse and then decode the neural signals from a human being. Work in this area has been done already, brute forcing the encoding of the optic nerve. However it was said that scientists are still a long way from being able to read neural spikes to tell just what a person is thinking. Secondly scientists have to use the knowledge of how to encode the experiences that have been stored and then use them to be able to re-program a brain that has suffered memory loss due to a brain injury.

It was said that implants are the way to go in the future if scientists want to find out how memories are encoded by the brain, rather than going down the road of a cranial mounted instrument. Memories are nothing more than a specific set of neuron connections along with electric pulses. With enough data and a lot of analysis using supercomputers, scientists believe that in the future they will be able to figure out the combinations needed to be able to re-program the brain so that memories and experiences can be brought back.