Your new post is loading...
Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques responsible for memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients.
The research team reports fully restoring the memories of 75 percent of the mice they tested it on, with zero damage to the surrounding brain tissue. They found that the treated mice displayed improved performance in three memory tasks - a maze, a test to get them to recognize new objects, and one to get them to remember the places they should avoid.
Alzheimer’s affects 50 million worldwide. A team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) have come up with a promising solution for removing the defective brain beta-amyloid and tau proteins.
Publishing in Science Translational Medicine, the team describes the technique as using a particular type of ultrasound called a focused therapeutic ultrasound, which non-invasively beams sound waves into the brain tissue. By oscillating super-fast, these sound waves are able to gently open up the blood-brain barrier, which is a layer that protects the brain against bacteria, and stimulate the brain’s microglial cells to move in. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so once they get past the blood-brain barrier, they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps before the blood-brain barrier is restored within a few hours.
Via Deb Nystrom, REVELN
I and the friends and families of those who know someone with Alzheimer's, estimated 50 million, hope this is true. It could be the breakthrough we need with implications for huge change in the world. ~ Deb