UHasselt researcher uses electrodes to rejuvenate the brain
When we age, our brains experience more difficulty in connecting different areas, often causing a reduction in motor skills. UHasselt scientists think they’ve got a solution: rejuvenate the electric circuitry in our brains
Young again
Many specific motions are controlled by certain areas in our brains. But what’s perhaps even more important is the way these areas work together – just like the right and left hemisphere co-operate to move our hands correctly.
The problem is that the extent to which different brain areas work together or communicate with each other cannot be visualised by an MRI scan, the current magic wand of neuroscience.
“The drawback of the MRI is that it visualises the activity of individual brain areas based on the measurement of blood circulation,” explains Raf Meesen, a rehabilitation expert at Hasselt University (UHasselt). “But communication between these areas doesn’t happen via the bloodstream: it happens through the synapses, or the ends of nerve cells.”
Meesen is intrigued by the “connectomics” of the human brain and sees it as a giant electric circuit. “Every brain area operates at a different frequency – that’s the frequency of the current resulting from the electric discharge of the synapses. These frequency differences protect our brains from a massive short circuit.”
With the use of another imaging technique called EEG, the electric activity from the brain can be recorded with a very high time resolution, allowing an inference of the brain’s electric activity into time-frequency patterns.
Young and old
Meesen is currently organising an investigation into how the brain’s communication network varies between people. More specifically, he is studying the differences between the networks of younger and older adults.
“In the first part of our investigation we used EEG recordings to look at whether and how we can identify decreased motor skills in the brains of elderly people. We did brain recordings while our volunteers, both young and old, performed manual tasks, like drawing simultaneously with two hands.”
The researchers found that “in the group of elderly people there were, on average, more brain areas activated than in the young adult group,” says Meesen. “This could mean that our brains automatically ‘recruit’ additional areas when a certain task is not performed satisfactorily.”
We’re looking at whether we can invoke long-term effects on the way different areas of the brain communicate with each other
Meesen knows one brain area in particular that plays an important role in manual exercises. “The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, in the front of our brains, generally plugs into other brain areas so that the resulting hand movements are well co-ordinated,” he says.
So in Meesen’s initial investigation, he and his colleagues – he works with researchers from Germany – used EEG recordings to visualise the spatial and temporal components of motor activity in the brain.
In the second part of the study, which will start in January, it’s time for action. Dozens of volunteers with light motor problems – which are normal symptoms of the ageing process – will be equipped with electrodes on their head to stimulate the local connections. The electrodes are attached to something that looks like a swimming cap.
Meesen says his volunteers shouldn’t be afraid. “The electric current we apply is really tiny,” he says. “The only thing they will feel is a very minor itching feeling on the surface of their head.”
Exercise for the brain
Though it might be full of electricity, with millions of synapses constantly charging and discharging, the real basis of our brain is still chemistry. So when you succeed in stimulating connections between certain areas and thus “rejuvenating” the brain, how long does the effect last?
“That’s a good question,” says Meesen, “and we don’t know the answer. That’s why we’re doing all these tests. We will investigate how high the chances of success are for certain specific tasks. And we’re looking at whether we can invoke long-term effects on the way different areas of the brain communicate with each other.”
The possibility that the effect of electrical stimulation might not last very long – or may even disappear just after the electrodes are taken away – isn’t a fundamental problem for Meesen, who of course hopes to develop treatments and applications that really can help people.
“Suppose we discover that it works only if applied during a half-hour session every morning, then it would still be an attractive treatment. Many elderly people spend a lot of time using exercise equipment at home. I don’t see the difference.”
And even if there’s only an effect when the swimming cap with the electrodes is on, Meesen sees applications. “Due to decreased motor skills, many elderly people have problems driving a car. So why not put on the cap while driving, just like wearing your seat belt?”
Photo: © MICHAELA REHLE/Reuters/Corbis
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Hasselt University
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- Hasselt University
- Limburg Association of Higher Education
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