Technology @lemmy.world thechadwick @lemmy.world 11 mo. ago

Brain implant improves cognition 15-52% in safety trial for TBI patients

www.newscientist.com Brain implant could ease the effects of a traumatic injury years later

A device that was implanted into the brains of people with traumatic brain injuries substantially improved their cognitive function a year later, a small study suggests

5 comments

Here is an awesome thing that's so cool it sounds unreal, and still the title is a massive lie. They performed one simple test better.

Awesome that this is even a possibility though
- It's science reporting and not immune to headline inflation, but it's not a lie to say there were measured improvements to patient cognition.
  
  There's a developing consensus that electric stimulation has therapeutic potential in restoring brain function (from basal ganglion to transdermal stim). But if you want the full study findings here, I course this article because it looks the DOI address at the bottom.
  
  Given how few (none) treatments they're are for TBIs right now, this is pretty exciting stuff to me at least.
- Also, if it was the same test, everyone does better on a test they've taken before. They should have also tested 6 regular people that never had tbi's to see how they compared.
  
  Getting approval, though, let alone finding healthy volunteers who are willing to have experimental technology surgically implanted in their brains -- that seems problematic.
Thalamic deep brain stimulation in traumatic brain injury: a phase 1, randomized feasibility study - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02638-4