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Scientists Claim Infrared Helmet Could Reverse Alzheimer's Symptoms
penguin_dance writes "Ready to put on your thinking cap? There's a report out of the UK regarding an 'experimental helmet which scientists say could reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease within weeks of being used'. The helmet is to be worn for ten minutes every day and stimulates the growth of brain cells using infra-red light. The article explains, 'Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull.' Human trials are due to start this summer." I wont make any nomad-based predictions, but I'll remain on the skeptic side of the fence for now.
Seeing the linked article's image of the 3 Doctor's holding their experimental "Prototype Cognitive Helmet", I can't help but imagine one of them wearing it while reenacting Rick Moranis' doll-play monologue from Spaceballs:
[Playing with his dolls]
Dark Helmet: [In Dark Helmet voice] And now Princess Vespa, I have you in my clutches, to have my wicked way with you, the way I want to.
[In Vespa voice]
Dark Helmet: No, no, go away, I hate you! And yet... I find you strangely attractive.
[In D.H. voice]
Dark Helmet: Of course you do! Druish princesses are often attracted to money and power, and I have both, and you *know* it!
[In V. voice]
Dark Helmet: No, no, leave me alone!
[In D.H. voice]
Dark Helmet: No, kiss me!
[V]
Dark Helmet: No! Stop!
[D.H]
Dark Helmet: Yes, yes!
[V]
Dark Helmet: Oh, oh, oh! Ohhhh, your helmet is so big!
Will it work even if I'm wearing my tinfoil hat?
So how is this helmet different from just walking around in the sunshine? It's not like there isn't any infra-red light in ordinary sunlight.
then why not use it for some personal brightening.
Having worked with mice and memory I can tell you emphatically that teaching them something and then determining that it is memory and not lower level reactive behavior is a whole can of worms in itself.
If infrared will penetrate the skull? Then people in sunny climates should have lessor incidents of the disease?
Won't it work even better on those of us who don't have the Alzheimer's, yet?
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
WTF are the these small fans doing on a helmet which is suppose to have infrared?
Interesting... similarly... "New technology developed by Emory and Georgia Tech researchers could aid the early identification of people susceptible to Alzheimer's disease. A portable device called Detect may provide an easier, less expensive way to test for mild cognitive impairment (MCI), which often leads to Alzheimer's. The test could provide potential Alzheimer's patients the chance to slow the disease's progress with medication before serious symptoms set in." Check out the nearly identical picture.
Scientists Claim Infrared Helmet Could Reverse Alzheimer's Symptoms.
Now where's my Slashdot website...
"We age because our cells lose the desire to regenerate and repair themselves."
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Cellular_regeneration_and_entertainment_chamber
Alchemist: Be Thou For the People
Does infrared light have the ability to pass through the skull ?... sounds like snake oil to me... I'll stick with my pyramid hat.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Will this be the new way of people not affected by Alzheimers increasing their brain power?
This could be the new way of boosting performance for exams.....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
"Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull."
Doesn't seem to be doing much for the ol' hair follicles
Daily Mail - source of 'News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters'
It shines a light on your head in the infrared spectrum... which is basically heat radiation... So it's a head warmer?
I know IR has more things than heat associated with it, but still... its a head warmer!
My father has Alzheimer's. Most Alzheimer's patients are very kind and sweet but my father is so bitter that he is always angry because at 55 he realizes his brain is slowly killing him. His short term memory is nil. He walks especially slow and his communication is getting poorer. He was diagnosed in October 2005 and he was showing symptoms before that.
Frankly, This is an illustration of why our process of developing medications is ridiculous. This may not work (though I resent that "wontwork" tag) but frankly there are at least 3 very promising treatments for Alzheimer's Disease in early trials. But because of the length and the way trials work, if they are successful none of them will emerge from trials early enough to help my father. And frankly, he and my family would be willing to try anything to help him. And in the end the worse outcome is that he doesn't get better. But we will never know. 10 years from now Alzheimer's may be no worse than severe diabetes, MS, Crohn's Disease or what have you: controllable, not curable with a quality of life equivalent to most other people. But because we would rather not kill a dying person to find out if we'll kill them or save them, my father will never get benefit of this.
Derek Greene
Sharks with freakin' laser beams saved my life.
Another therapy reported in Science Daily shows reversal of Alzheimer's symptoms in minutes, rather than weeks
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080109091102.htm
From the article:
"An extraordinary new scientific study, which for the first time documents marked improvement in Alzheimer's disease within minutes of administration of a therapeutic molecule, has just been published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation.
"This new study highlights the importance of certain soluble proteins, called cytokines, in Alzheimer's disease. The study focuses on one of these cytokines, tumor necrosis factor-alpha(TNF), a critical component of the brain's immune system. Normally, TNF finely regulates the transmission of neural impulses in the brain. The authors hypothesized that elevated levels of TNF in Alzheimer's disease interfere with this regulation. To reduce elevated TNF, the authors gave patients an injection of an anti-TNF therapeutic called etanercept. Excess TNF-alpha has been documented in the cerebrospinal fluid of patients with Alzheimer's.
"The new study documents a dramatic and unprecedented therapeutic effect in an Alzheimer's patient: improvement within minutes following delivery of perispinal etanercept, which is etanercept given by injection in the spine. Etanercept (trade name Enbrel) binds and inactivates excess TNF. Etanercept is FDA approved to treat a number of immune-mediated disorders and is used off label in the study."
Mmmm! What's cooking for dinner?
By the look of that helmet, I'd be able to replicate it by strapping my computer box to my head. If I then set the box to calculate some insanely difficult task, like tic-tac-toe, the heat would penetrate by brain and make me effectively immune to degenerative diseases of the the brain.
...where the PSU fans for my PCs have gone! Are they there to prevent your brain cooking while being bathed in the infrared grill? ...here!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Louis: [to Egon] Do I?
Dr. Egon Spengler: Yes, have some.
Louis: [to Janine] Yes, have some.
I couldn't find a link to read the article but here is the abstract.
For the lazy: Middle aged / young rats are put in a 3D maze with some middle-aged mice receiving 6 minute daily doses of IR. Middle aged mice treated with IR show (nebulously-termed) improved memory but do not navigate the 3D maze more quickly as a result.
Doesn't sound like such the panacea the Dailymail article makes it out to be.
I've been trying to mute my gf with the TV remote for years. Its done nothing for her.
IMAGE VERIFICATION IS EVIL!
Will it work through my tin foil hat?
Just callin' it like I see it.
whatcouldpossiblygowrong tag?
Well, it may not reverse Alzheimer's, but it will reverse hair loss! Guaranteed!
Alternatively, have the researchers tried putting an oversized suction cup plumbed to a vacuum pump on the patient's head to grow brain cells?
An 80-year-old couple is having trouble remembering things, so they go
to the doctor to make sure there's nothing wrong.
After an exam, the doctor says, "You're physically okay, but you guys
might want to start writing notes to help you remember things."
That night they're watching TV when the old man gets up from his chair.
His wife says, "Where are you going?"
He says, "I'm going to the kitchen to get a glass of water."
She says, "Will you get me some Vanilla ice cream?"
He says, "All right."
She says, "Don't you think you should write it down?"
He says, "I don't have to write it down. Vanilla ice cream."
She says, "And could I have strawberries and whipped cream?"
He says, "All right."
She says, "Don't you think you should write it down?"
He says, "I don't have to write it down.Vanilla ice cream with
strawberries and whipped cream."
Twenty minutes later he walks in and hands her a plate of bacon and eggs.
She says, "You forgot my fucking toast."
What?
Is there perhaps any way you could get your father into some of the human trials the article mentions?
Presumably the people in these trials are simply patients themselves, namely those willing to accept the risks of an experimental treatment.
I guess I'm just a cynical bastard now, but having weasel words in a story like this whispers, "snake oil" or, "wishful thinking" to me. Maybe it's because all the people selling quack stuff are careful about how they say things for legal reasons, and now I put too much effort into scrutinizing how medical claims are worded. Call me when it's actually curing Alzheimers in a no-shit, double-blind, randomized study with more than a handful of participants.
[b.belong('us') for b in bases if b.owner() == 'you']
FTA
> Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair.
sounds like with the right type of "helmet" this could be a good for schlong enlargement.
Will it help me remember what I actually wanted when I went down the steps to the basement?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Really, they don't give a damn about your father - only the money his insurance could give them, or the money his lawyer could take away from them. Right now they're focusing on eliminating the second, while increasing the first. How much more would you pay after enduring another year of this? It's not like this is a disease that directly kills the poor bastards effected by it. How much less would they have to pay if they find there are significant permanent side effects before making the decision to sell to millions of patients?
And frankly, he and my family would be willing to try anything to help him.
I really feel your pain - Alzheimer's destroys both your loved one and your opinion of your loved one, but your dad simply was born too early. Be glad that you were born at a time where you can know that in 10 years you won't have to worry about this horrendous disease.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Godwin freaks, piss off for a bit will you.
The nazi's had your approach, they believed that killing people if it might save others was a good idea, especially if the people were being killed were less worthy anyway. Who is going to be the subject of your medical experiments? There is an awfull lot of research that would go a lot faster if only we had human trials with less restrictions.
To this day a lot of the research from that era is still the ONLY research available because nobody else allows us to kill people to really see what kills them. All modern hypothermia research for instance can only guess at what the limits are, because it is not acceptable to truly freeze a person to death.
There are plenty of examples even in modern times of ethics going wrong. Google for "medical research foster childeren new york" and you will find a case where somebody without ethics decided that people should be volunteered for medical research. Nazi germany or trying to save others, others of more value then foster childeren?
Who is going to volunteer your father? Himself, a person with reduced mental capacity? You? The facility that takes care of him?
And what part of medical research? Part of experiments to find new medicines involve giving otherwise perfectly healthy subjects a disease so you can be sure that you are ONLY working on that disease and nothing else. Would you volunteer your father to have his back broken to research potential cures for spinal injuries?
Sadly the current system does let people die who could have benefitted from drugs in development, but the alternative is just to horrible to contemplate. We need very strict ethics when it comes to experimenting on human beings (and for that matter on animals) because if we don't, we are no longer human.
I rather die from some disease then live in a society where people are experimented on at the whim of drugs companies.
Also remember this, your father is dying, he is not death yet. Where there is live their is hope. But if some researcher of on wild goose chase injects something nasty to see what happens, then he will very death indeed.
I understand your pain, but for the sake of one human being we cannot loose our humanity.
Also your post seems naive, are you really willing to kill your father to save someone else? Because you end the sentence with "my father will never get benefit of this." Sorry, you father would be a lab rat, society benefits, the lab rat doesn't.
Even if the medicine your father would get would really work, the only way to be certain is dissection, your father would have to be killed after the experimental drugs were administred to be certain it was the drugs that cured him and not something else. Those lab rats that get cured from the disease they were infected with don't life much longer then the control group. All end up on the dissection table.
Sorry, your idea is horrible, if human beings were a better type of person we might be able to do it, but humans are just to inclined to pure evil for it to not lead to horrible abuses.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I want to cure my Alzheimer's, but I keep forgetting to wear my helmet.
I, for one, welcome our new infrared-emitting tinfoil hat overlords.
I've always wondered why (many) men become bald. There would seem to be no selection pressure to cause men to lose hair and there are some obvious selection pressures for them to keep their hair. (Loss of sexual attractiveness to females, old age indication to younger rivals etc.).
Maybe hair BLOCKS infra-red light in sunlight so losing your hair when you get older helps keep your mental facilities from declining. Does anyone know if the helmet is more effective on bald people? Does anyone know if Alzheimer's is less prevalent in bald people?
This is such a cockamamee theory that I'm posting as an A/C (and I'm too lazy to log in). Also no, I'm not bald (or getting that way) thankfully.
[blockquote]'Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull.'[/blockquote]
That's funny. When I leave the infrared transmitter for my wireless headphones on when I go to bed, I don't seem to sleep as well.
does it run Linux?
Did Johnny Chung Lee figure this one out too?!
The bit about infrared light penetrating the skull seems to set off the BS detector to me. Any of the sciency types amongst us have comment on that? They use ultrasound to penetrate human goo for a reason; I've never heard of infrared being used to get past skin, much less bone.
:)
And of course, even if it does, it could upset your2 phrenological balance
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Isn't infrared light a low dose of radiation? I remember our teacher said that once. It's not healthy at all... I'm they're trading one problem for another (Cancer).
Only his has a built in chiller as well.
Heeeey! Maybe we can get one for PTerry so he can keep writing Discworld books...
Tried finding 1072nm near-IR emitters lately?
I just spent 10 minutes searching, the stuff I've seen tops out at about 880 nm.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Alzheimer patients, what would this do when applied to people with "normal" cognitive functioning?
Tech Public Policy stuff
Don't worry about that, I can remind you...
:-)
Your last words before doing so were "mom, I'm going back to my room now"
Every disease is, in essence, an anomaly on our EM fields. We're biorobots.
Let's see them try to patent ElectroMagnetism next. That will be fun.
Unicorn
mysterious bruises?" Madonna's bruises take 2nd billing to a fountain of youth helmet? What type of publication are these people running?
FAQs are evil.
But because we would rather not kill a dying person to find out if we'll kill them or save them, my father will never get benefit of this.
Actually, while a compound is still going through FDA trials, it is easier to get ahold of to the lay person then if it "passes" the trial. The chemical manufacturers are now churning out those compounds for research trials, and anyone can buy them for "non-human research only". As well as some license a "research supplier" to also handle sales of these compounds to individuals. Case in point: I am very pale, and do not tan well... So I buy Melanotan II (was mentioned in Wired a few years back)... Now I'm tanned, thinner, more muscular, and have a much greater sex drive (the pleasant side effects of this compound.. A great drug if the FDA would get off its ass and approve it.). So hunt down the drugs you have heard about, and see if its been killing any animals. Call the scientists and say you are doing a research piece on their companies work, and ask how the drug, and how much of it, is to be administered. Call them at home if possible... Most scientists love talking about their work for hours, without thinking of the consequences of the information given... I know I do...
The only thing is, if you do that, and something goes wrong... You are kinda out of luck. But it beats a slow death without your mind any day.
And you can find out if the company has any other offices. If they have a manufacturing branch in either India or China, then you can buy there much easier then in the USA... Though you might have customs trouble.
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
The tin foil hats are eating the color red. All frying goes noggin into the sea. Wash the green flamingo with utmost jump.
Over star to tape and grass. I like pie!
Since constant cell phone use has been shown to measurably raise brain temperature, could walking around with a cell phone to your ear have the same effect? Maybe if you put one on each ear? You could call one with the other. Reverse Alzheimers while talking to yourself!
They could call it the Alzheimer's Subcranial Stimulation hat. Otherwise known as the... nah, I'm not going there.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
is that it both increases and lowers your risk of cancer. vitamin d production and all that.
but about OP's comment that he'll stay on the skeptic's side of the fence for now, doesn't that just mean you're not going to let someone put an infrared helmet on you until further tests have been done? or are you going to walk around actively disbelieving it?
Please stop stalking me, bro.
Could this reverse that kind of damage too?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
...and a handful for, wait what was I thinking, ummmm....
Yah, I ordered one for G. W. Bush and a handful for..... ummmmm.... argh old age.
It's also "supposed" to be served in a sturdy ceramic cup with an open top that allows rapid evaporative cooling (which is why the coffee needs to be that hot in the first place). Failing that, a sturdy cardboard cup would at least be reasonable.
What is obviously not reasonable is a cheap styrofoam cup that gets soft when it is exposed to that level of heat, although this may not be obvious to the customer when it is stabilized by a rigid plastic top firmly in place. Remove that top (to add sugar or cream (which are provided separately so that the customer has to remove the top), and the cup is prone to catastrophic collapse from even slight pressure on the sides. And obviously unsafe to serve to customers in cars, who clearly are not going to have a table to catch most of the spill (this was hardly the first burn they'd had, just the worst).
So yes, serve the coffee HOT if you want--but spend the money to give the customer a reasonably safe cup. If you are going to compromise by using a cup that can't take the heat, you have to compromise on the temperature as well to maintain safety.
Key points:
This is a case study of one patient.
Treatment was not double blinded. Patient's family and doctor knew about the treatment.
From the paper, the degree of improvement sounds a bit short of complete reversal of symptoms Upon returning to the clinic one week following perispinal etanercept administration for his weekly dose the patient's wife and son confirmed that he had remained markedly clinically improved throughout the week, a fact which was remarked upon by the family [see Additional file 1]. He was noticed to be less reluctant to join in conversation. On re-examination by author ET prior to repeat dosing one week after the initial dose, the patient correctly identified the year, month, season, day of week and state. He appeared to answer with less frustration, and the examiner's impression was that there was reduced latency of response, and his affect seemed improved. On the FAS test for verbal fluency when asked to list all of the words that start with the letter F in 60 seconds he listed 8 words, and named 5 animals in 60 seconds. The study author has a patent on this treatment strategy.
Severity of Alzheimer's dementia can vary dramatically from day to day, and many patients show periods of near-complete lucidity.
I can't help wondering how much etanercept (it is a large protein) is getting into the brain when administered in this way.
It is widely suspected that Alzheimer's Disease has an inflammatory component, so the approach is not unreasonable, but I worry about large number of patients' families demanding etanercept based on this very preliminary work.
An infrared helmet won't cure Alzheimer's, but an infrared helmet with a Wii tracking system on their TV would blow their poor confused minds.
It's a reference to the shitty source of the article. Of course, in order to understand that reference, one would have to actually read the article.
FAQs are evil.
My mother bought a relatively expensive low level laser(970nm) treatment device for use on some of her post surgical injuries. I rolled my eyes when she showed me and told me about it. I had previously debunked her 'heavy metal footbath extraction equipment with some salt, a couple nails and a 12 volt battery.
The packaging and instructions had wild claims of curing a huge variety of ailments. Again, i kind of snickered to myself, hoping she could capture at least some psychosomatic benefit from the device. You know where this is going... I thought what the hell, i'll blast my wrists(I suffer from moderate carpal tunnels). I was astonished, within 10 minutes all my discomfort was relieved. The symptoms returned, albeit not so severely about 10 days later. I spent half a day looking for some kind of peer reviewed publication that could describe the mechanism by which the device provided some kind of benefit, but found nothing but a few abstracts from eastern europe that i dont think anyone would take seriously.
Perhaps i just experienced the placebo affect, but there was a very real benefit to me. I continue to use the device roughly once a month and have little to no pain related to my CTS. There is plenty of snake oil out there. Blueberries will not cure your cancer. But there is a real possibility there is some low level laser effect. As for the article and the laser helmet benefitting alzheimers, i have no idea.
Sorry for the AC response, im not comfortable discussing my health and my mother's health in a public forum. Especially endorsing something that is at least a little left of center on the crackpot meter.
Never heard of this before. Too bad it's not true and you are propagating another "urban myth" (although Polar Bears aren't especially urban).
Thanks for playing.
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
rats blinded by ingesting methanol had much of their vision restored by being irradiated with IR light
You know, if you're confident on the technology, you can build a thing like this yourself. Email the scientists to get the specs and go ahead.
When I was in japan I told people that where I come from, you can't get cold coffee, and that seemed weird and alien to them.
The point of the woman's lawsuit was that handing people flimsy cups of dangerously hot liquids at a drive-through was not a good idea.
You can't take the sky from me...
Huh. I guess Helms of Int +30 actually do exist.
But that's not a problem for Slashdotters. Now a Helm of Cha +30, that's what's needed around here!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The thing must run awfully hot, it's got enough cooling fans on it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
that's exactly what I was looking for.
Tech Public Policy stuff
That woman was sold a cup of coffee that was somewhere between 180-190 F. That's hot, sure
225 consumers tasted black coffees at six different temperatures, ranking them for preference. The lowest temperature was below the pain threshold, the next below the epithelial damage threshold, the next two above. The two highest temperatures approximated to coffees served commercially.
The rank order of preference for temperatures was 160F (71.1C)... Coffee shop serving temperatures ranged 168-187F (75.6-86.1C). Observed time from serving to drinking ranged: 2-1005 sec, (median 114 sec). The average estimated drinking temperature was 168.1F. At what temperature should you serve coffee?
As to Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants;
1 The coffee was sold as a drive-thru take out. That maximizes the chance of spills.
2 The woman was 79 years old and for all practical purposesd mmobilized in her car seat. This was nothing like the geek tippimg over his cup at Starbucks.
She was taken to the hospital, where it was determined that she had suffered third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent. She remained in the hospital for eight days while she underwent skin grafting. Two years of treatment followed.
3 Documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burnt by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000
4 Liebeck sought to settle with McDonald's for US $20,000 to cover her medical costs, which were $11,000, but the company offered only $800. A mediator suggested $225,000 just before trial, but McDonald's refused these final pre-trial attempts to settle.
In short, McDonald's attorneys gambled on the chance they could persuade a jury to decide against an 81 year old woman who had been in and out of hospital for two years.
So cell phones give us cancer because they heat our brain, but this helmet prevents alzheimer's because... it heats our brain ???
More details in this discussion on NeuroTalk Forum...
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/showthread.php?p=197454
Maybe it can cure that A disease (the one where u 4get stuff, I can't spell it) but OMGosh there is NO way infrared light can do anything for blondes lyk me cuz it would just heat up the air in my head, ya know ?? :( so lyk omgosh they so need to find out how to turn air into brains!!
I wrote an extensive (52 page) paper on terahertz radiation (spectra between the microwave and infrared frequencies), and I can tell you, absolutely, that this is bullshit.
Infrared radiation is commonly thought of as heat because it is absorbed so readily by the water in your body. Near the microwave region, there are several frequency windows that can penetrate several millimeters of biological tissue, but several millimeters is not very far.
At higher frequencies, the transmittance is even worse--there are practically no band windows that can be used for effective transmission, even when transmitting through the atmosphere where water content is much less. This is why terahertz imaging is still in research and development--stronger emitters and more sensitive detectors are needed due to atmospheric absorption.
If an alzheimer's treatment is to be effective with this technique, the radiation will have to penetrate more than a few millimeters of brain tissue. In fact, I suspect that this radiation must penetrate throughout the entire brain. Infrared frequencies simply cannot do that, and they never will.
It is the outer few milimeters of brain tissue that starts to go first during Alzheimer's and thus if the device works it could buy quite some time for sufferers detected at early onset.
- Son, what's the name of that German guy that keeps hiding my medicine?
- It's Alzheimers, Dad, Alzheimers.
What am I doing here again?
The first time I remember hearing of the trick of using IR for deep tissue healing it was being investigated for healing the Bends in Navy Divers at the University of Wisconsin in 2000.
http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/975450257.html
The theory then was that the IR was being picked up in the cytochrome in each mitochondria and thereby providing a direct power feed to each cell.
IR light forced more ATP generation at the mitochondrial level.
How the Hell Does this Work???
Well....
This was thought to bypass failing transport mechanisms (like the blood stream) to get past the circulatory damage that the Bends caused in divers.
I could see how this same 'trick' could bypass part of the failing circulation and neuron/neuron transport that might contribute to the body not being able to heal Alzheimer's Disease.
ATP is the general power currency off the bioworld, so this is the equivalent of broadcast power for each cell.
Tesla would be proud!
Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor, I'm a mad scientist.
(OK OK, I'm a biology student/researcher at the University of Kansas.)
Years of work by other researchers at specific wavelengths trumps your survey work for -- oh wait, you don't tell us how much effort you put into your survey.
Science requires you to attempt to reproduce their work.
BTW, are we supposed to be impressed by page count?
Whoop-D-farking dooooo, 52 whole pages!
Wow, I never knew that page count == good science.
I'm not an Alzheimer's scientist and I haven't studied it at all. What I can tell you is that the intensity of infrared light that would penetrate the skin, the skull, and finally reach the brain would be so low that it could be considered negligible. Transmittance decreases exponentially in the presence of water and I doubt any significant amount of radiation would even penetrate the person's scalp.
Now I can keep the aliens from scanning my head AND remember that I saw aliens!
Table-ized A.I.
My interest is multifold -- I run a clinic that treats brain injury w. HBOT, and need a better way to watch progress than highly expensive functional MRI, PET and other such "Big Medicine" that costs thousands per look and million or so per machine ... This wonderful Hitachi device is mostly software, and as you noticed, a few pieces of hardware that you can get at Fry's. I'm a software guy in a prior life so I value software, but Hitachi will give me one of 1/2 dozen machines in the world, when there need to be thousands, cheeeeep (Hitachi price: $1/3rd mill; real price, a few $K.... time to produce these things)
So, combining monitoring and testing w. therapy is the Big Deal, you can test in realtime and modify your therapy in minutes rather than months! We need this, to accelerate therapy orders of magnitude. There are 300,000 so-called vegetative patients in the country, 40% of which are called "misdiagnosed", but actually its more than that imo. These folks can think, are aware, but cannot respond, and these machines are Step One in getting them better.
That's aside from the benefit of IR to the cells of the brain. W. proper software and biofeedback, you can manipulate and communicate w. the world, while you're getting better w. HBOT and future stem cell therapy...
Anyway, that's my area of research, and I'm grateful if you have any thoughts in the future
That's all you need to know, right there. As far as credible science reporting goes, they're up there with the Weekly World News.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?