Committing to Memory: Memory Prosthetics Show Promise in Helping Those with Neurodegenerative Disorders

Cell phone chimes, sticky notes, even the proverbial string around a finger-these timehonored external cues help guard against our inevitable memory lapses. But some internal help to the brain itself may be on the way in the form of what's being called memory prosthetics. Once considered to be on the fringes of neuroscience, the idea of adding hardware to the brain to help with memory has gathered steam. In 2014, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made a US$30 million investment in memory prosthetic research as part of the Obama administration's Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative. In August 2016, Kernel, a startup based in Los Angeles, California, announced its goal to develop a clinical memory device for those debilitated by neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.