US military researchers say they have awarded $US40 million ($A43.28 million) toward developing a new kind of brain implant that may help restore memories in wounded soldiers and civilians.
The work represents a major scientific leap forward, but experts say many hurdles remain before it can be shown to work in people, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) said on Wednesday.
The hope is that some day, a wireless, implantable device will bridge gaps in the injured brain and make it easier to remember basic events, places, and context - known as declarative memories.
Such recall can be lost in traumatic brain injury, which has affected 270,00 US military service people since 2000 and touches 1.7 million US civilians each year.
"Our vision is to develop neuroprosthetics for memory recovery in patients living with brain injury and dysfunction," Justin Sanchez, program manager of the Restoring Active Memory (RAM) program at DARPA said.
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
DARPA says it's carefully weighing the ethics of such experiments and consulting with a panel of neuroscience experts about potential pitfalls associated with the research.
"It is risky, which is very typical of DARPA," said Geoffrey Ling, director of DARPA's Biological Technologies Office.
The work is part of a four-year program that supports President Barack Obama's Brain Initiative, a $100 million effort.
Any new neuroprosthetic device will be first tested on patients with epilepsy who have also suffered memory loss as a result of their condition and who are already implanted with electrodes as part of their treatment, researchers said.
As an example of the kind of memory that researchers aim to restore, Sanchez cited a simple trip to the store, for which a person would need to remember the name of the store, where it is located, perhaps the phone number, or the name of the owner.
Such facts can be difficult to recall when a person has a traumatic brain injury, but Sanchez says they ultimately want to find solutions for the emotional, social and economic aspects of those injuries.
