Improving autobiographical memory in Alzheimer's disease by transcranial alternating current stimulation. (August 2021) - Bréchet, Lucie
Highlights: Advances in neurobiological understanding about the cause of cognitive disability in AD spark new hopes for therapeutic strategies. Metrics of neuronal communication and functional integration in large-scale networks are promising biomarkers for AD. Personally meaningful memories of our past are not fixed, but may be strengthened by later intervention, such as non-invasive brain stimulation. Transcranial alternating current stimulation studies show that weakened physiological mechanisms may be reversible. Abstract : We review the latest evidence from animal models, studies in humans using electrophysiology, experimental memory paradigms, and non-invasive brain stimulation (NIBS), in the form of transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS), suggesting that the altered activity in networks that contribute to the autobiographical memory (ABM) deficits may be modifiable. ABM involves a specific brain network of interacting regions that store and retrieve life experiences. Deficits in ABM are early symptoms in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), and serve as relevant predictors of disease progression. The possibility to modify the neural substrates of ABM opens exciting avenues for the development of therapeutic approaches. Beyond a summary of the causal role of brain oscillations in ABM, we propose a new approach of modulating brain oscillations using personalized tACS with the possibility of reducing ABM deficits. We suggest that human experimental studies using cognitive tasks, EEG, and tACS can have future translational clinical implications.