Week 3

Notes on the reading: As someone who suffers from chronic calf pain from soccer-sustained injuries, the way that pain decreased significantly overtime with the use of the virtual limbs was very inspiring! I hope to be able to use it at some point, as all my current pain medications are self-prescribed. Also, the us of the video games seemed as a very positive experience, something that can really help. It was quoted as, “…The distribution of pain intensity over time shows that at the beginning of the treatment, the patient had a sustained level of pain (∼30%) during more than half of the time, and periods with higher levels of pain the rest of the time. Over the course of the treatment, a reduction of time at higher pain intensity levels was reported, as well as the appearance of periods of lower or absent pain.” [1]

The project I propose would be a study on the use of sound to recall and restore memories. There have been successful studies where memory recall can be manipulated by sounds from that place and time as the memory.  Doctors in Spain “….found the reactivation of associated memories by sound cues at test biased oculomotor behavior towards locations congruent with memory representations, even when participants failed to consciously provide a memory report of it.” [2]

This would be a very hard study to conduct, but I believe that creating specific sound cues and memory associations while creating memories can increase the possibility of later recalling memories by listening to the cues.

 

Works Cited:

 [1] Sander, Nichlas F. "Treatment of Phantom Limb Pain (PLP) Based on Augmented Reality and Gaming Controlled by Myoelectric Pattern Recognition: A Case Study of a Chronic PLP Patient." Frontiers. Biomedical Engineering Division, Department of Signals and Systems, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden, 25 Feb. 2015. Web. 08 June 2016. <http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnins.2014.00024/full>.

[2] Càmara, Estela. "Accessing Forgotten Memory Traces from Long-term Memory via Visual Movements." Frontiers. Cognition and Brain Plasticity Unit, Institute of Biomedical Research of Bellvitge (IDIBELL), Barcelona, Spain, May-June 2014. Web. 08 June 2016. <http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00930/full>.