Andrew Budson, MD, Receives Grant to Test Whether Neurofeedback Technique May Improve Memory in Patients with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s Disease

Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology and associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, has been awarded a two-year, $150,000 grant with collaborator Daniel Levy, PhD, professor of psychology at Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel, from the U.S. Israel Binational Science Foundation for their research, “Improving subsequent memory in aging and Alzheimer’s disease by theta oscillatory brain activity modulation.”

The hippocampal theta oscillation is a key brain signal that underlies various aspects of cognition and behavior, including memory and spatial navigation. Budson will evaluate neurofeedback to amplify theta oscillatory brain activity during waking rest, a novel, non-pharmacologic method with the potential to improve memory consolidation in healthy older adults and those with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Memory consolidation is the process by which memory traces of newly encoded events are stabilized such that the learning will be long-lasting. “Consolidation processes during sleep or waking rest may be mediated, in part, by theta oscillations of 4-8 Hz. Increases in theta oscillations during learning has been linked to successful subsequent memory. Therefore, upregulating theta power during waking rest might benefit subsequent memory,” explains Budson, who also is chief of Cognitive & Behavioral Neurology and director of the Center for Translational Cognitive Neuroscience at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System.

Budson graduated cum laude from Harvard Medical School and was chief resident of the Harvard-Longwood Neurology Residency Program, pursuing a fellowship in dementia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and studying memory as a post-doctoral fellow in experimental psychology and cognitive neuroscience at Harvard University.

Budson has received government research funding since 1998, including a National Research Service Award and a Career Development Award in addition to a NIH Research Project Grant (R01). He has given more than 800 local, national and international grand rounds and other academic talks and has published more than 150 papers, reviews and book chapters and is a reviewer for more than 50 journals.

He has co-authored or edited nine books, including: “Memory Loss, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Dementia: A Practical Guide for Clinicians” (translated into Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese); “Seven Steps to Managing Your Aging Memory” (translated into Korean and Simplified Chinese); “Six Steps to Managing Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia: A Guide for Families”; and “Why We Forget and How to Remember Better: The Science Behind Memory,” (being translated into Arabic, Greek, Spanish, Korean, and Simplified Chinese.)

Budson was awarded the Norman Geschwind Prize in Behavioral Neurology in 2008 and the Research Award in Geriatric Neurology in 2009, both from the American Academy of Neurology