The Brain Behind the Brains

• RESTORING ACTIVE MEMORY (RAM)

  Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a serious cause of disability in the United States. Diagnosed in more than 270,000 military servicemembers since 2000 and affecting an estimated 1.7 million U.S. civilians each year, TBI frequently results in an impaired ability to retrieve memories formed prior to injury and a reduced capacity to form or retain new memories following injury. Despite the scale of the problem, no effective therapies currently exist to mitigate the long-term consequences of TBI on memory. Through the Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program, DARPA seeks to accelerate the development of technology able to address this public health challenge and help servicemembers and others overcome memory deficits by developing new neuroprosthetics to bridge gaps in the injured brain.

  The end goal of RAM is to develop and test a wireless, fully implantable neural-interface medical device for human clinical use, but a number of significant advances will be targeted on the way to achieving that goal. To start, DARPA will support the development of multi-scale computational models with high spatial and temporal resolution that describe how neurons code declarative memories—those well-defined parcels of knowledge that can be consciously recalled and described in words, such as events, times, and places. Researchers will also explore new methods for analysis and decoding of neural signals to understand how targeted stimulation might be applied to help the brain reestablish an ability to encode new memories following brain injury. “Encoding” refers to the process by which newly learned information is attended to and processed by the brain when first encountered.

  Building on this foundational work, researchers will attempt to integrate the computational models developed under RAM into new, implantable, closed-loop systems able to deliver targeted neural stimulation that may ultimately help restore memory function. These studies will involve volunteers living with deficits in the encoding and/or retrieval of declarative memories and/or volunteers undergoing neurosurgery for other neurological conditions.

  In addition to human clinical efforts, RAM will support animal studies to advance the state-of-the-art of quantitative models that account for the encoding and retrieval of complex memories and memory attributes, including their hierarchical associations with one another. This work will also seek to identify any characteristic neural and behavioral correlates of memories facilitated by therapeutic devices.

  RAM and related DARPA neuroscience efforts are informed by members of an independent Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) panel. Communications with ELSI panelists supplement the oversight provided by institutional review boards that govern human clinical studies and animal use.

  RAM is part of a broader portfolio of programs within DARPA that support President Obama’s brain initiative.

Courtesy:http://www.darpa.mil/NewsEvents/Usage.aspx