Fixing the Brain

Researchers from the University of Western Australia have shown that the electromagnetic stimulation can alter brain organisation and enhance its functioning. The research greatly increases the understanding of specific cellular and molecular events that occur within the brain.

For the experiment, the team used mice born with an abnormal brain organisation wherein, they tested a low–intensity version of a therapy known as low–intensity repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (LI–rTMS) to demonstrate that even at low intensities, pulsed magnetic stimulation holds the potential to reduce the abnormally located neural connections and shift them towards their correct locations in the brain.

The reorganisation is associated with changes in a specific brain chemical across the whole network. However, the most important finding is that the structural reorganisation did not disturb the healthy brains or appropriate neural connections in the abnormal brains, suggesting that the therapy could have minimal side effects in humans.