In a fascinating Science interview, Emily Underwood spoke with DARPA’s Geoffrey Ling about two of the agency’s proposed brain-related projects: 1) Wireless devices that can cure neurological disorders such as PTSD, depression and chronic pain, and 2) A wireless device that repairs brain damage and restores memory loss. One exchange:

“Question:

For RAM, why did DARPA choose to focus on memory, and what kinds of memory do you hope to restore?

Geoffrey Ling:

All these [injured] guys and gals want to go back into the service. A lot of them can go back because we’ve got good prosthetic legs, and now we’ve got the prosthetic arm that’s really close to being FDA [Food and Drug Administration] approved. But the thing with brain-injured guys—the thing that really keeps them out—is they can’t remember how to do certain motor tasks like drive a car or operate machinery. Now I don’t know if we are at that point, but if we can fix hearts, and we can fix badly broken bones, why can’t we fix part of the brain? If you had to pick an area of the brain that you can fix, the memory area is the most obvious because motor-task memory is really pretty well-worked out in preclinical models. Declarative memory is very different than associative memory and emotional memory—that stuff, nobody even knows anything about it—but when you look at the work in rodents with memory motor tasks, you say ok, it’s still a big step but it’s rational.”