Imagine your life if you didn’t have the luxury of memory. Every day, in everything you do, you are using your memory to some degree. For instance, for me to type this sentence, I need to have a memory of things like where each key is on my keyboard, which words I want to use, and my overall concept for the sentence. I then need to factor in grammar, spelling, etc. You also use memory each day to walk, speak, drive, read, and navigate through your environment. These are the most basic tasks, but the list of things we do that require memory is endless. It is amazing when you think of how reliant we are on our memories. I don’t know a woman in Canada that wouldn’t want to give her husband’s memory a little enhancement from time to time. After one forgotten anniversary, the husbands probably wouldn’t mind a memory enhancement pill either! So, it should come as no surprise that researchers are always looking for ways to try to enhance memories. But, before they can make that magic pill, they need to figure out how it’s done.

A recent experiment with rats set out to determine whether stimulation of the amygdala immediately after encountering a new object would enhance the memory of that object. The amygdala is part of the limbic system, which lies on top of the brainstem, underneath the outer shell of the brain called the cortex. The amygdala is associated with our motivations and emotions. It also makes big decisions about our memories, such as which ones we store and where in the brain we store them. The current belief is that larger emotional responses trigger the amygdala to store more memories. This particular research experiment attempted to stimulate the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BCA) electrically, as opposed to naturally (emotionally). The hypothesis was that this stimulation would increase memory levels. Stimulation of the BCA was predicted to enhance memory by changing the capacity for the connections between neurons, or brain cells, in the hippocampus to change in strength. The hippocampus is near the amygdala and is strongly associated with memory. This change in connections between neurons of the hippocampus is known as synaptic plasticity.

The BCA has previously been shown to indirectly assist memory for emotional events by increasing arousal and attention. The researchers exposed the rats to novel objects in the study phase. Some of these objects were followed by a brief electrical stimulation of the BCA immediately after the rat was finished exploring the object, while other objects were not connected to any electrical stimulation. Results of this study showed that the rats remembered all objects equally when tested immediately after the study phase. This, of course, did not provide enough information for them to be able to say the stimulation of the BCA had any effects on memory. But, in a following test performed one day later, the rats only remembered the objects that were followed by electrical stimulation in the study phase. These results show that memory for novel objects was enhanced a day after exposure when the BCA was stimulated immediately after exploring the objects. The exact neuronal effects associated with BCA stimulation remained uncertain.

So, providing further research confirms these results, it seems the researchers have found a way to enhance memory. All we women have to do to make sure our anniversaries are never forgotten is electrically stimulate our husbands’ brains! Maybe the emotional response from them when we explain the procedure would be enough to enhance their memory naturally after all.

Source: Bass, D., I., Partain, K., N., & Manns, J., R. (2012). Event-Specific Enhancement of Memory via Brief Electrical Stimulation to the Basolateral Complex of the Amygdala in Rats. Behavioral Neuroscience, 126(1), 204-208.