German Researchers Boost Memory with Electrical Stimulation of Brain Sleep-cycle

Metacognitive defibrillation, once only a wackedelic subheading existing in the realm of science fiction and metaphor, is now within the reach of medical science. Actually, it may be more cognitive than metacognitive, at this point, and doesn't rise to the level of defibrillation so much as the voltage of, say, a smoke alarm. The news is that German scientists report that low-level stimulation of the brain in a slow-wave oscillation results in improved memory. Abstract at http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nature05278.html
To quote a few small words from the abstract:

Nature advance online publication
5 November 2006
doi:10.1038/nature05278; Received 19 July 2006; Accepted 25 September 2006; Published online 5 November 2006
Boosting slow oscillations during sleep potentiates memory

Lisa Marshall, Halla Helgadóttir, Matthias Mölle and Jan Born

There is compelling evidence that sleep contributes to the long-term consolidation of new memories. This function of sleep has been linked to slow ( under 1 Hz) potential oscillations, which predominantly arise from the prefrontal neocortex and characterize slow wave sleep. However, oscillations in brain potentials are commonly considered to be mere epiphenomena that reflect synchronized activity arising from neuronal networks, which links the membrane and synaptic processes of these neurons in time. Whether brain potentials and their extracellular equivalent have any physiological meaning per se is unclear, but can easily be investigated by inducing the extracellular oscillating potential fields of interest. Here we show that inducing slow oscillation-like potential fields by transcranial application of oscillating potentials (0.75 Hz) during early nocturnal non-rapid-eye-movement sleep, that is, a period of emerging slow wave sleep, enhances the retention of hippocampus-dependent declarative memories in healthy humans. The slowly oscillating potential stimulation induced an immediate increase in slow wave sleep, endogenous cortical slow oscillations and slow spindle activity in the frontal cortex. Brain stimulation with oscillations at 5 Hz—another frequency band that normally predominates during rapid-eye-movement sleep—decreased slow oscillations and left declarative memory unchanged. Our findings indicate that endogenous slow potential oscillations have a causal role in the sleep-associated consolidation of memory, and that this role is enhanced by field effects in cortical extracellular space.

That was the whole abstract. Do you think they'd sue? I couldn't find a good line to summarize it and give enough context. I bet that was just one sentence in German. Who would have ever thought of juicing the brains of people falling asleep? Note that they say the benefits appear with under 1 hertz oscillations, and disappear with 5 hertz oscillations, just the opposite of overclocking. Epiphenomena, my foot! Transcranial… spindle… in cortical extracellular space: all are words that you should try to weave seamlessly into today's conversations (and/or written memoranda).

Electronic brain-jacking experts speculate that the memory-boosting procedure will not become a common therapy, due to the unknown nature of the side effects, but may make up an increasing percentage of emergency-room admissions during finals week as medical students experiment in modding their own memories. Other applications of the technology may exist. May all of your nocturnal transcranial epiphenomena potentiate your oscillating neocortical spindle.