Ever gone to the movies and forgotten where you parked the car? New UCLA research may one day help you improve your memory. UCLA neuroscientists have demonstrated that they can strengthen memory in human patients by stimulating¹ a critical junction² in the brain. Published in the Feb. 9 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, the finding could lead to a new method for boosting memory in patients with early Alzheimer's disease.

The UCLA team focused on a brain site called the entorhinal cortex（内嗅皮质） . Considered the doorway³ to the hippocampus（海马） , which helps form and store memories, the entorhinal cortex plays a crucial role in transforming daily experience into lasting⁴ memories.

"The entorhinal cortex is the golden gate to the brain's memory mainframe," explained senior author Dr. Itzhak Fried, professor of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Every visual and sensory⁵ experience that we eventually commit to memory funnels⁶ through that doorway to the hippocampus. Our brain cells must send signals through this hub in order to form memories that we can later consciously recall."

Fried and his colleagues followed seven epilepsy（癫痫） patients who already had electrodes implanted in their brains to pinpoint⁷ the origin of their seizures⁸. The researchers monitored the electrodes to record neuron activity as memories were being formed.

Using a video game featuring a taxi cab, virtual passengers and a cyber city, the researchers tested whether deep-brain stimulation⁹ of the entorhinal cortex or the hippocampus altered recall. Patients played the role of cab drivers who picked up passengers and traveled across town to deliver them to one of six requested shops.

"When we stimulated¹⁰ the nerve fibers¹¹ in the patients' entorhinal cortex during learning, they later recognized landmarks¹² and navigated¹³ the routes more quickly," said Fried. "They even learned to take shortcuts¹⁴, reflecting improved spatial¹⁵（空间的） memory.

"Critically, it was the stimulation at the gateway¹⁶ into the hippocampus - and not the hippocampus itself - that proved effective," he added.

The use of stimulation only during the learning phase suggests that patients need not undergo continuous stimulation to boost their memory, but only when they are trying to learn important information, Fried noted¹⁷. This may lead the way to neuro-prosthetic devices that can switch on during specific stages of information processing or daily tasks.