Scientists performing experimental brain surgery on a man aged 50 have stumbled across a mechanism that could unlock how memory works. The accidental breakthrough came during an experiment originally intended to suppress the obese man's appetite, using the increasingly successful technique of deep-brain stimulation. Electrodes were pushed into the man's brain and stimulated with an electric current. Instead of losing appetite, the patient instead had an intense experience of déjà vu. He recalled, in intricate detail, a scene from 30 years earlier. More tests showed his ability to learn was dramatically improved when the current was switched on and his brain stimulated.Scientists are now applying the technique in the first trial of the treatment in patients with Alzheimer's disease. If successful, it could offer hope to sufferers from the degenerative condition, which affects 450,000 people in Britain alone, by providing a "pacemaker" for the brain.Three patients have been treated and initial results are promising, according to Andres Lozano, a professor of neurosurgery at the Toronto Western Hospital, Ontario, who is leading the research.Professor Lozano said: "This is the first time that anyone has had electrodes implanted in the brain which have been shown to improve memory. We are driving the activity of the brain by increasing its sensitivity - turning up the volume of the memory circuits. Any event that involves the memory circuits is more likely to be stored and retained."The discovery had caught him and his team "completely by surprise", Professor Lozano said.

They had been operating on the man, who weighed 190kg (30st), to treat his obesity by locating the point in his brain that controls appetite. All other attempts to curb his eating had failed and brain surgery was the last resort. The treatment for obesity was unsuccessful. But, while the researchers were identifying potential appetite suppressant points in the hypothalamus, the part of the brain associated with hunger, the man suddenly began to say that memory was flooding back.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/scien ... 75586.html

That's great.

i sure could use this for my school work

This is incredible!
But think of it this way,if someone uses this thing to recall everything like 40-50(example) years ago they could go crazy,you know... Which is kinda screwed up...

where only using about 1% of our brain power if i recall corectly

Yep but you could still go crazy...The amount of memory could be huge...Think: if we use 1% of our brain in everyday work and stuff and we recall what happened like 3-4 days ago,think what could happen if we remember things that happened like 40-50 years ago. This could prove fatal.

i renember things that happened wen i was 6-7

I thought it was about 10%.

yes thats also posible :/
either 1 or 10

It's 10%, of course there are some people that only use 1%.

yup i checked it (google) your right

Okay, but as Lycan said, won't this cause trouble?

i dont think so, memories all look alike, if you live 30 years you will have a lot of memories but only a few worth renembring
i am able to recall conversations that i had more than 2 years ago
yet im not going crazy

But that's only a small proportion of what 50 year old memories could hold.

still you forget irrelevant things
this is more to not forget to go to the store in 20 mins