Associate Professor Lim Lee Wei. The Malaysian born scientist from Sunway University discovered that deep brain stimulation can help reduce the symptoms of dementia.
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Associate professor Lim Lee Wei on the left.
How did he do it?
The preliminary study was conducted while he was a research fellow at Maastricht and Oxford University, and the findings were also published recently in the Translational Psychiatry, a journal of the Nature Publishing Group, by Macmillan Publishers Limited.
For memory enhancement, bilateral electrodes were implanted in the prefrontal cortex, a key brain structure for regulation of emotion, cognition and decision making.
After chronic stimulation, the research team found a significant improvement on both the short- and long-term memory functions in animals, using well-validated behavioural memory tasks.
‘Although the findings from present experimental model show promising results, validation in the clinical studies is essential to determine its efficacy. Nevertheless, this is a major step forward on the journey towards combating dementia in humans’,said the vice-chancellor of Sunway University, Professor Graeme Wilkinson.
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