An Alzheimer's therapy experiment using brain pacemakers turned out to be successful in improving the memory or arresting memory loss of a small group of patients suffering from the disease.

The three-year experimental therapy called Deep Brain Stimulation conducted by a team of researchers from the Toronto Western Hospital resulted in half of the patients or three out of six doing better than without using the pacemaker.

Lead researcher Andres M. Lozano said he is planning a larger DBS trial once funding becomes available.

Lozano first applied DBS in 2003 to treat a patient from obesity. He found that DBS triggered memories in the signaling areas of the brain prompting him to try the technique on Alzheimer's patients.

Medicine