Breakthrough Ultrasound Treatment To Reverse Dementia Moves To Human Trials

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New Atlas: An extraordinarily promising new technique using ultrasound to clear the toxic protein clumps thought to cause dementia and Alzheimer's disease is moving to the first phase of human trials next year. The innovative treatment has proven successful across several animal tests and presents an exciting, drug-free way to potentially battle dementia. The ultrasound treatment was first developed back in 2015 at the University of Queensland. The initial research was working to find a way to use ultrasound to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier with the goal of helping dementia-battling antibodies better reach their target in the brain. However, early experiments with mice surprisingly revealed the targeted ultrasound waves worked to clear toxic amyloid protein plaques from the brain without any additional therapeutic drugs. The new announcement regarding the upcoming move to human trials is underpinned by a large funding injection from the Australian government helping accelerate the treatment's development. The first stage is a phase 1 safety trial, kicking off later in 2019, to explore the safety profile of the treatment in human subjects suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

Comments

Can we deploy them in the Capitol Building?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if such ultrasound machines placed inside Congress might help some of the demented souls in there. Quite a few Parliaments 'round the world might give it a shot, too.

Demented, dementia, whatever.

That finally explains it!

[Locke2005]

Those noises in my head are just trying to knock the plaque loose!

But, but, but..

[s122604]

How is this possible, I was assured that medical advancement were only possible if we put corporations in control of medicine.