Andrew Budson, MD, Receives Grant to Test Whether Neurofeedback Technique May Improve Memory in Patients with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s
Research
Andrew Budson, MD, Receives Grant to Test Whether Neurofeedback Technique May Improve Memory in Patients with Early-Stage Alzheimer’s
Budson will evaluate neurofeedback to amplify theta oscillatory brain activity during waking rest, a novel, nonpharmacologic method with the potential to improve memory consolidation in healthy older adults and those with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
Andrew Budson, MD, professor of neurology and associate director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, has been awarded a two-year, $150,000 grant with collaborator Daniel Levy, PhD, professor of psychology at Reichman University, Herzliya, Israel, from the US 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, nonpharmacologic 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 has received government research funding since 1998, including a National Research Service Award and a Career Development Award in addition to an NIH Research Project Grant (R01).