AI Merged with Electrical Brain Stimulation Improves Human Brain Function

In a new study, researchers merged artificial intelligence with targeted electrical brain stimulation to show that it is possible to improve specific human brain functions related to self-control and mental flexibility. The findings come from a human study conducted at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston among 12 patients undergoing brain surgery for epilepsy--a procedure that places hundreds of tiny electrodes throughout the brain to record its activity and identify where seizures originate. The study is the first to show that a specific human mental function linked to mental illness can be reliably enhanced using precisely targeted electrical stimulation and that there are specific sub-parts of the internal capsule brain structure that are particularly effective for cognitive enhancement. Lastly, they show that a closed-loop algorithm used as a controller was twice as effective as stimulating at random times. This work is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering in the article, "Closed-loop enhancement and neural decoding of cognitive control in humans."