At present the majority of the focus is on enhancing the
entorhinal area. It's believed that _this_ is the place where
memory gets encoded into long term memory. I personally think
there's a strong connection between memory encoding and
retrieval and sinus troubles.
Anyway, it's like boosting gain in an amplifier for a stronger
signal, or adding a pre-amp to your microphone so you can put it
through a line-input.
They're not creating new memories/false memories/etc. Of course
the EXPERIENCE of memory boost/retrieval is another story - how
will it affect other neural systems and the subjective
experience of it all; but I'm a huge fan of this. Our brains
will be able to store/retrieve more, lessening the need for
computers to store information.
This is really fucking cool to me, because I didn't know we
reached that point yet. I'm VERY excited.
[1]
http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2014-07-09
"Unique to the UCLA team*s approach is a focus on the portion of
the brain known as the entorhinal area. UCLA researchers
previously demonstrated that human memory could be facilitated
by stimulating that region, which is known to be involved in
learning and memory. Considered the entrance to the
hippocampus*which helps form and store memories*the entorhinal
area plays a crucial role in transforming daily experience into
lasting memories. Data collected during the first year of the
project from patients already implanted with brain electrodes as
part of their treatment for epilepsy will be used to develop a
computational model of the hippocampal-entorhinal system that
can then be used to test memory restoration in patients. "
References
Visible links
1.
http://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2014-07-09
