In 2001, Gina Arata was in her final semester of college when she suffered a severe traumatic brain injury from a car accident. Due to the damage caused by this incident, Arata both lost her memory and experienced anger issues. Her parents later learned that Stanford was conducting medical research on restoring cognitive function following brain injuries. The researchers recruited five participants aged 22 to 60 with injuries from 3 to 18 years earlier, and thankfully, Arata was accepted as a participant. In 2018, physicians surgically implanted a device in her brain and calibrated its electrical activity to stimulate the networks that her injury had subdued. Since the device was implanted, Arata has seen a significant improvement in memory, cognitive ability, and anger management. Stanford Medicine’s implant improved the cognitive skills Arata and other participants had lost from brain injuries, and this innovative technique is the first to show promise against long-lasting impairments from traumatic brain injuries.
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