Earlier this year, neurosurgeon Andres Lozano published a startling finding. He was testing deep-brain stimulation, in which electrical current is delivered directly to the brain, as a treatment for obesity. The patient's weight showed little change, but his memory improved significantly. Lozano has now formed a company to commercialize the technique as an Alzheimer's therapy, and he's testing it in six patients in the early stages of the disease.

Alzheimer's is sorely in need of new treatment approaches. Five million people suffer from it in the United States, a number expected to rise dramatically as the baby boomers enter their senior years. Finding new treatments has proved extremely difficult: drugs currently on the market have at best only a modest impact on symptoms. And experimental drugs that improve cognitive function in animals have largely failed in human tests.

In the past few years, deep-brain stimulation has become a routine treatment for Parkinson's disease: approximately 40,000 patients worldwide have undergone the procedure. Scientists are now testing it as a way to treat a growing number of other disorders, including epilepsy, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.  Read More...