--- title: Deep Brain Stimulation: Why Memory Loss is so Hard to Treat description: A new study shows deep brain stimulation doesn't help memory loss. Here's why it's so hard to develop memory treatments for issues like Alzheimer's. canonical: https://time.com/4592564/why-scientists-are-still-flummoxed-by-alzheimers/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-07T17:00:56.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:53.447Z article:section: Health og:title: Deep Brain Stimulation: Why Memory Loss is so Hard to Treat og:description: A new study shows deep brain stimulation doesn't help memory loss. Here's why it's so hard to develop memory treatments for issues like Alzheimer's. og:url: https://time.com/4592564/why-scientists-are-still-flummoxed-by-alzheimers/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb9e8e4e1c0d452/6988604c8e06017e23461fdb/brain-health-illo.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1000 og:image:height: 563 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock health brain og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Deep Brain Stimulation: Why Memory Loss is so Hard to Treat twitter:description: A new study shows deep brain stimulation doesn't help memory loss. Here's why it's so hard to develop memory treatments for issues like Alzheimer's. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt4eb9e8e4e1c0d452/6988604c8e06017e23461fdb/brain-health-illo.jpg?branch=production&width=1000&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why Scientists Are Still Flummoxed by Alzheimer's > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Health Matters: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Health Matters is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The latest health news and expert advice on living well. Health Matters makes the fast-moving world of health more useful, surprising and human, from the latest science and medical breakthroughs to practical ideas for living better. 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It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Alzheimer's Researcher Rudolph Tanzi on Why he's Optimistic [Watch (HLS stream): Alzheimer's Researcher Rudolph Tanzi on Why he's Optimistic](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Ebl6dMCj.m3u8) (3:53)  _Published 2015-08-26. Tanzi is a pioneer in the field of Alzheimer's research, and has spent most of his career studying a disease that plagues 5.3 million Americans every year._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 7, 2016 5:00 PM UTC  Illustration by Sydney Rae Hass for TIME by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Dec 7, 2016 5:00 PM UTC Preventing [memory loss](http://time.com/4587930/aerobic-exercise-brain-dementia/?iid=sr-link1) and restoring it once it’s gone is the holy grail of brain science. In the United States alone, an estimated 5 million people are living with [Alzheimer’s disease](http://time.com/4217067/alzheimers-from-a-new-angle/). But recently, unexpected and disappointing findings have underlined just how difficult it is to develop therapies for cognitive decline. In November, Eli Lilly announced that its Alzheimer’s drug [solanezumab](http://time.com/3967541/new-alzheimers-drugs/) failed to show a significant benefit for people with mild forms of Alzheimer’s. “The outcome was not what we hoped for, and that is disappointing for the millions of people waiting for a potential disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Eric Siemers, medical director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Team at Lilly [said during a teleconference](http://time.com/4581267/eli-lilly-company-alzheimers-disease-drug/). And in [another study](http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273%2816%2930836-4) of a potential treatment, released Wednesday, researchers found that deep brain stimulation didn’t improve memory—in fact, it worsened it. “That was the most surprising thing,” says study author Joshua Jacobs, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. “We found a small but statistically very robust decrease in memory, which is not what we had hoped for.” Deep brain stimulation is a procedure where electrodes are implanted into a person’s brain, and an electrical current stimulates those areas. Prior, smaller studies have had promising findings but in the new study, the researchers found the people performed worse on recall tasks when the stimulation was turned on. The effects were temporary, and the procedure had no lasting impact on memory. Jacobs says it’s possible the procedure could work with refinement. One of his co-authors [recently found](https://www.sfn.org/annual-meeting/neuroscience-2016/sessions-and-events/program/~/media/SfN/Documents/Annual%20Meeting/FinalProgram/NS2016/Full%20Abstract%20PDFs%202016/SfN16%5FAbstract%20PDFs%20%20Posters%5F3%5FMon%5FAM.ashx) improvements in people’s verbal memory with more varied stimulation. But why is it so difficult to create effective therapies for memory? “Memory is one of the most complex processes the brain carries out,” says Jacobs. “Memory is part of all aspects of the conscious experience. To understand and improve a process that involves the whole brain or a lot of the brain is a big challenge.” Let’s say you were asked to remember your birthday last year. Different parts of the brain will contribute to the recall of where you were, what was happening, and how you were feeling at the time. It’s a complex feat and the various processes at play can be difficult to untangle. “Memory isn’t really an ability, it’s really a collection of different abilities,” says Charan Ranganath, a professor at UC Davis Center for Neuroscience who has also studied brain stimulation for memory. “I could teach you a good mnemonic trick to help remember names that go with faces, but that won’t help you remember your upcoming doctor appointment or the plot of a complicated movie.” Ranganath was not involved in the recent study. Memory is also very hard to regain after it’s lost. If a person develops memory problems from a stroke or Alzheimer’s disease, the damage has been done and the options are few. That’s why prevention has become a target. But what’s done in a lab doesn’t always apply to how people make memories in the real world. “One of our biggest challenges is translate what we know about precise processes in the brain into tests and biomarkers that are sensitive to memory disorders,” says Ranganath. Yet while there’s a lot unknown about how to treat ailments of the brain, there’s a lot we _do_ know too. The link between the mind and body has never been more apparent: doctors now know that type 2 diabetes significantly increases a person’s risk for Alzheimer’s, and depression also takes a toll on memory. Preventing or treating these diseases may cut back on the risk for memory loss over time. “The difficult part is that people don’t necessarily want to do what is needed to improve your memory,” says Ranganath. “I’m a great example—I’m out of shape, chronically stressed out, and I don’t get enough sleep!” But scientists continue to explore possibilities. Some attempts, like brain games, may not work as well as intended, but others like improving diet, exercising more, or even improvements in brain stimulation, may be successful down the line. ## Transcript When you realize you've found a new gene, or you've found a defect in a gene you've been searching for, there's this moment in time where there's this incredible amount of satisfaction. And then you go to bed, and you know that at least for that evening, you're the only person in the universe to have discovered this amazing thing. They might have the chance to help billions of people now and long after you're gone. So it's really, it's hard to describe a feeling like it. We were the first ones to find the disease gene using genetics, back in the early 80's. Our lab equipment catalog was basically Kmart. Because nobody sold anything yet we had to build it all. For my student thesis, I decided I wanted to build the first end to end map of a chromosome. It was the first time that was gonna be possible. And I'd been working on that gene and other genes like it ever since trying to come up with novel therapies for the disease. I have Alzheimer's disease. Early onset. I got to talk a little bit to Julianne Moore, who was a Time 100 honoree at the gala. And I told her, I said, the mutation you had in the movie, I discovered. That was the gene mutation you had in the movie was actually discovered by our lab. [ MUSIC ] Between 1906 and 1986, We had no idea what caused the pathology. So people would look in the brains of patients after they died; See the plaques, the tangles, the evidence, the information and then have to guess what happened to this brain. And it was the equivalent really of aliens coming down from space and they want to understand the game of football and say" Well, wow what happened here "? They see some grass dug up and... Crumbled up sheet of paper where they get a little bit more evidence of what happened. There's no footballs in sight. There are no players in sight. For decades, that was the equivalent of how we were trying to figure out Alzheimer's. Then in the late 80s when we and others found the first Alzheimer's genes, now we had the real physical targets. We said, this is what's going on. Here's the gene that makes the amyloid. Here are the mutations that make everything go wrong. And so now for the first time, we had hard evidence from genes and proteins that said exactly what was happening before the pathology. [ MUSIC ] Alzheimer's disease affects 50 % of people over 85. Life span right now is 80. If we don't throw more money into this disease, There's a 50 % chance you're gonna get this disease in your lifetime cuz you're probably gonna reach 85. We know so much about this disease. We now know of 2 or 3 dozen different genes beyond the first 4 we found in the 80s and 90s that cause this disease or are predisposed to it. But the funding is what limits how much we can do. We have enough funding to do about five percent of our to- do list of equally important tasks. You look at cancer, AIDs, heart disease. They get twelve billion, ten billion, eight billion. six billion dollars from the government and you see in the incidents of these diseases all go down as a result. Alzheimer's last year got a half a billion Yeah. I always teach my students and trainees, think about what science is going like 50 or 100 years from now and make it your goal to come up with something that lasts 50 years and doesn't go away. Your role as a scientist when you go into the lab is not to prove it but to disprove it. If you go in the lab, And try to crush your hypothesis, kill it, and then see what little thread survives. And then use that to come up with the next idea. Over your lifetime, you're gonna build a little tapestry. If it hangs on in 50 years from now, it's still part of the [ UNKNOWN ] tapestry, you've done more than most. 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