Short Term Memory Problems Can Be Improved With Laser Therapy - Neuroscience News

Summary: Transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM), a laser therapy delivered to the right prefrontal cortex appears to improve short-term memory in both human and animal models.

and Beijing Normal University in China, demonstrated that the therapy, which is non-invasive, could improve short term, or working memory in people by up to 25%.

The treatment, called transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM), is applied to an area of the brain known as the right prefrontal cortex.

In their experiment, the team showed how working memory improved among research participants after several minutes of treatment.

Previous studies have shown that laser light treatment will improve working memory in mice, and human studies have shown tPBM treatment can improve accuracy, speed up reaction time and improve high-order functions such as attention and emotion.

Participants were treated with laser light to the right prefrontal cortex at wavelengths of 1,064 nm, while others were treated at a shorter wavelength, or treatment was delivered to the left prefrontal cortex.

The participants treated with laser light to the right prefrontal cortex at 1,064 nm showed clear improvements in memory over those who had received the other treatments.

The researchers do not yet know precisely why the treatment results in positive effects on working memory, nor how long the effects will last.

Professor Ole Jensen, also at the Center for Human Brain Health, said, “We need further research to understand exactly why the tPBM is having this positive effect, but it’s possible that the light is stimulating the astrocytes—the powerplants—in the nerve cells within the prefrontal cortex, and this has a positive effect on the cells’ efficiency.

“Transcranial photobiomodulation enhances visual working memory capacity in humans” by Chenguang Zhao et al.

Whether tPBM can modulate brain activity and thereby enhance working memory (WM) capacity in humans remains unclear

In this study, we found that 1064-nm tPBM applied to the right prefrontal cortex (PFC) improves visual working memory capacity and increases occipitoparietal contralateral delay activity (CDA)

Our findings provide converging evidence that 1064-nm tPBM applied to the right PFC can improve WM capacity