DR MICHAEL MOSLEY: Can electric shocks to your brain give you the memory of a 20-year-old?

Do you ever go upstairs to look for something, then realise you have no idea why you were going upstairs in the first place? Or what about putting rice on to cook, then leaving the room and only returning when you smell the burning? I find that as I get older I am increasingly doing these sorts of things. I’m not too worried. After all, about 40 per cent of people over the age of 60 have some form of age-related memory loss. It isn’t thought to be a condition or illness in itself, rather just natural wear and tear on the bits of the brain that connect to help us remember. But it is annoying. So I was intrigued to read the results of a recent study where it was discovered that if you zap the brain of someone in their 60s with short bursts of electricity, it can, at least for a short time, give them the memory ability of someone in their 20s. Buzzing: Christopher Lloyd as mad scientist Doc zapping his brain cells in cult movie Back To The Future Buzzing: Christopher Lloyd as mad scientist Doc zapping his brain cells in cult movie Back To The Future Could electric shocks really boost memory? The particular type of memory the researchers tested is something called working memory. This is the ability to hold several pieces of information in your mind at the same time, such as an address you have just read, while also trying to take down a telephone number. Working memory allows us to process information and be creative but it starts to decline in our early 30s, as sections of our brain gradually become out of sync and disconnect from each other. By the time we reach our 60s, these links may […]

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