美研發出有助治療阿爾茨海默病的大腦植入體
Researchers in the US have developed an implant to help a disabled brain encode memories, giving new hope to Alzheimer’s sufferers and wounded soldiers who cannot remember the recent past.
美國研究人員開發了一種植入體，以幫助受損的大腦對記憶進行編碼，這將給阿爾茨海默病(Alzheimer's disease)患者以及無法記住近期事情的受傷士兵帶來新的希望。
The prosthetic, developed at the University of Southern California and Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in a decade-long collaboration, includes a small array of electrodes implanted into the brain.
這種假體是由南加州大學(University of Southern California)和美國維克森林浸信會醫學中心(Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre)歷時10年之久合作開發出來的，它包含若干植入大腦的電極。
The key to the research is a computer algorithm that mimics the electrical signalling used by the brain to translate short-term into permanent memories.
這項研究的關鍵是一種計算機算法，它會模擬大腦用來將短期記憶轉變爲長期記憶的電子信號。
This makes it possible to bypass a damaged or diseased region, even though there is no way of “reading” a memory — decoding its content or meaning from its electrical signal.
這讓繞過受損或患病大腦區域成爲可能，儘管目前還沒有辦法“閱讀”記憶——即破譯出這些電子信號代表什麼內容或含義。
“It’s like being able to translate from Spanish to French without being able to understand either language,” said Ted Berger of USC, the project leader.
該項目負責人、南加州大學的泰德伯傑(Ted Berger)表示：“這就好比是能在既不懂西班牙語也不懂法語的情況下將西班牙語譯成法語。”
The prosthesis has performed well in tests on rats and monkeys. Now it is being evaluated in human brains, the team told the international conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society in Milan.
這種假體在老鼠和猴子身上測試時取得了不錯的效果。研究團隊在IEEE生物醫學工程學會(IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society)米蘭國際會議上表示，現在正在人腦中進行評測。
The project is funded by Darpa, the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is interested in new ways to help soldiers recover from memory loss.
該項目的資金來自美國國防高級研究計劃局(US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency)，該局感興趣的是幫助士兵從失憶中康復的新方法。
But the researchers say findings could eventually help to treat neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s, by enabling signals to bypass damaged circuitry in the hippocampus, the brain’s memory centre.
但這些研究人員表示，通過讓信號繞過海馬體（Hippocampus，大腦記憶中樞）的受損迴路，上述研究發現最終可能有助於治療神經退行性疾病，包括阿爾茨海默病。
