Stimulation of the Right Entorhinal White Matter Enhances Visual Memory Encoding in Humans

Overview

Journal Brain Stimul

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Neurology

Date 2020 Dec 6

PMID 33279717

Citations 17

Authors

Emily A Mankin

Zahra M Aghajan

Peter Schuette

Michelle E Tran

Natalia Tchemodanov

Ali Titiz

Guldamla Kalender

Dawn Eliashiv

John Stern

Shennan A Weiss

Dylan Kirsch

Barbara Knowlton

Itzhak Fried

Nanthia Suthana

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: While deep brain stimulation has been successful in treating movement disorders, such as in Parkinson's disease, its potential application in alleviating memory disorders is inconclusive.

Objective/hypothesis: We investigated the role of the location of the stimulating electrode on memory improvement and hypothesized that entorhinal white versus gray matter stimulation would have differential effects on memory.

Methods: Intracranial electrical stimulation was applied to the entorhinal area of twenty-two participants with already implanted electrodes as they completed visual memory tasks.

Results: We found that stimulation of right entorhinal white matter during learning had a beneficial effect on subsequent memory, while stimulation of adjacent gray matter or left-sided stimulation was ineffective. This finding was consistent across three different visually guided memory tasks.

Conclusions: Our results highlight the importance of precise stimulation site on modulation of human hippocampal-dependent memory and suggest that stimulation of afferent input into the right hippocampus may be an especially promising target for enhancement of visual memory.

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