Breakthrough in the treatment of Alzheimer’s – a non-invasive ultrasound method

In the US alone, every 67 seconds a person develops Alzheimer’s disease.

According to experts’ estimates, by 2050, 16 million Americans will suffer from this disease. However, scientists from the University of Queensland, Australia announced that they have made a “breakthrough” in the treatment of this disease – they invented a non-invasive ultrasound technology that can restore memory in such patients.

“The term ‘breakthrough’ is often misused when talking about scientific discoveries and research, but we think that in our case this term is not at all exaggerated.

We actually think our research will change the modern understanding of the therapy of this disease, and the method we have developed has a great future ahead of it,’ says the main author of the study Professor Jürgen Götz.

In his research, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, Professor Götz shows that this new method, using ultrasound therapy, removes beta-amyloid plaques from the brains of mice suffering from induced Alzheimer’s disease and thus restores their memory .

Beta-amyloid is a peptide that is involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease. As the brain ages, the beta-amyloid fragments in patients with this disease clump together, forming plaques that accumulate in the spaces between nerve cells, called synapses.

Although the mechanism by which beta-amyloid plaques accumulate and thus contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease is not well understood, previous studies have shown that the plaques interfere with communication between nerve cells and thus cause death of neurons.

All this leads to a decline in cognitive functions and memory loss.

Numerous scientific studies have been conducted in search of a drug that would prevent the deposition of beta-amyloid in the brain. For example, attempts have been made to use antidepressants for this purpose, which led to a certain positive result in tests on mice.

But Australian scientists have looked for another way to treat this socially significant disease and thus developed a non-invasive, non-toxic and relatively inexpensive method of treating Alzheimer’s patients using ultrasound.

This technique consists of repeated impacts on the brain with ultrasound waves, which leads to a temporary opening of the blood-brain barrier.

When applying this therapeutic method to mice with Alzheimer’s disease – the scientists managed to achieve a complete clearing of the brain from beta-amyloid plaques in 75% of the mice.

“Ultrasound waves have an extremely high frequency and thus activate the microglia cells, which digest and remove the amyloid plaques and thus restore the synapses of the brain,” explains Professor Götz.

Mice whose brains were “cleaned” of plaques using ultrasound were subjected to 3 memory tests and the scientists found that they had significantly increased memory capacity compared to untreated experimental animals with Alzheimer’s disease.

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The scientists claim that the memory level of the cured mice was comparable to the memory level of the healthy mice.

Commenting on the obtained results, the scientists indicate:

“Repeated ultrasound exposure to the brains of mice resulted in the removal of amyloid plaques without damaging the neurons. This method is very promising and should be carefully studied as a non-invasive method with great potential for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. “