the man instead began to get extremely clear and vivid memories

A routine surgical operation to help a man who was suffering from chronic obesity has opened up a possible avenue to help men and women who suffer from Alzheimer's disease. The operation which is done pretty rarely involves a process called deep brain stimulation. The idea is that by working on parts of the brain that control appetite you may be able to suppress it. This sort of surgery is only ever done in extreme cases when obesity is at a life threatening stage and the risk of brain surgery is therefore worth taking.

In this case the man who weighed 30 Stone had been overweight all of his life and nothing else seemed to work. What happened with this morbidly obese man was when they tried to stimulate the appetite controlling area of the brain the man instead began to get extremely clear and vivid memories of experiences that he had previously forgotten over 30 years ago.

Alzheimer's disease which is a chronic illness which causes people to completely forget all details about their lives can be extremely distressing. The researchers led by Professor Andres Lozano from the Toronto Western Hospital based in Ontario say that they have used this intervention to treat three patients suffering from Alzheimer’s and have had “promising results”. They say that the small electric shocks that they administer work as a “pacemaker” in the brain and that a permanent electrical insertion could be the way forward to treat Alzheimer's in the future.

What we have learned at Ukmedix News over the last few years of reporting on medical science and discoveries is that great discoveries are nearly always stumbled upon by accident.  It looks like in this case that it happened again.