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Breakthrough Ultrasound Treatment To Reverse Dementia Moves To Human Trials

Posted by BeauHD on from the promising-treatments dept.

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.

10 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Wrong end of the "gun" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Alzheimer's is likely the result of the brain trapping infectious agents: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/health/alzheimers-disease-infection.html. It makes little sense to treat the symptom of an infection rather than its cause.

  2. Odd Choice of Target by PseudoAnon · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Clinical medication/drug trials have repeatedly shown that removing amyloid clusters doesn't reverse dementia and usually doesn't even slow its progression. I won't get my hopes up, but it'd be wonderful if things go better this time. The target seems strange, but it sounds like there might be a little more to this approach.

    1. Re:Odd Choice of Target by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Clinical medication/drug trials have repeatedly shown that removing amyloid clusters doesn't reverse dementia and usually doesn't even slow its progression.

      Do you have a citation for this? I am not aware of any drugs that significantly reduce beta amyloids, so how can we say that removing them doesn't work ... when we aren't removing them?

      I won't get my hopes up, but it'd be wonderful if things go better this time.

      Indeed. Dementia costs the American economy $200B annually. Worldwide, it costs more than $1T. When you consider the enormous benefits of a cure, it is obvious that dementia research is vastly underfunded, as is mental health research in general. Schizophrenia costs America another $100B annually, and autism costs $125B, and far more worldwide.

    2. Re:Odd Choice of Target by labradort · · Score: 4, Interesting

      He's right. Researchers over 10 years ago believed they had a chemical that would chelate with these proteins. Same idea. The experiment worked, and the symptoms were not touched. They found the proteins are tags that tell them there is presence of the disease, the protein is not the cause.

      Strange there are repeatedly massively funded research projects targeting the same solution that is known to not work. One wonders what is the real goal of the researchers? Possibly just job security.

      If you read the linked article carefully, it says the method works on mice brain models, not actual mice. What do you know, the theory backs the theory. Using the same model oriented methods, the moon model is made of cheese.

    3. Re:Odd Choice of Target by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 3, Interesting

      AFAICS those medicines could only dissolve the plaques in theory, in practice they didn't (except with topical application, which isn't really an option for humans). The mechanical action of ultrasound might break up the plaques sufficiently so those medicines would actually work.

  3. Ultrasound penetration by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ultrasound can go 3-4 cm before the signal isn't coherent enough to reflect. This might be fine in mice, but they will have to stick the transducers into brains to work in people.

  4. I really hope this works, Alzheimer's is FUCKED by t0qer · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Let's put aside the effects of the disease first, and it's impact on the patients body. I want to talk about just how fucked this thing is for the rest of slashdotters, and what the worst part about the disease is. It's greed.

    Let me rewind to 2 years ago. It was Christmas at my Grandma's. Grandma's really special to me, as a kid she fostered me when my druggy parents could not. She made me the man I am today, took me off the streets. Taught me things that would last a lifetime, like saying, "Please, Thank you sir, and no ma'am".

    She had also amassed quite a fortune, to the tune of what I'd later learn was $20 million dollars or so. Her sons never worked. They grew up thinking they were royalty of our town. Back to Christmas though.

    My father whispered to me, "This is the last Christmas we'll be having here, your uncle is going to put her in a home!" I thought he was joking. 20 years earlier, my uncle had talked her letting him be a trustee of a new trust. The trust gave him powers that in the event she lost mental faculty, he could "Do what is necessary for her care" A pretty broad statement.

    He had been shopping her to various doctors around town looking for one that would give her a diminished capacity declaration. Most of them refused, but the last few he met were more than happy to do it, and recommend she be placed in a secured memory facility. Basically a prison for folks with Alzheimer's. Some of these doctors did this without ever having met my grandmother.

    A letter was sent out to the family, that he was going to do this to her from the lawyer that drew up the trust.

    Thankfully the court was on her side. She wanted to stay home, and had always been told by my grandfather that's where she'll stay. It took 2 years of fighting, since he had access to her money. Ironic he used her own money against her to hire lawyer after lawyer. There was a compromise made, but it was in her favor for the most part. Uncle would not have conservator over her medical or financials. He would still be a trustee of the trusts, but under a yearly audit from the courts. He would pay all of her bills (including caretakers) and for repairs to her house.

    It was during that fight though that pained me the most. Him and his brothers would go over there and lie to her, tell her things to confuse her. While I was at work, they'd go over there and tell her I was the bad guy. Her story changed when she talked to the court investigator, but the investigator knew what was going on, as well as my team.

    Watching family lie and manipulate the affected is the most fucked part in Alzheimer's. It reduces what's called a persons susceptibility to undue influence. I'm not going to diminish the fact that my grandma's mental state deteriorated, but the stress of court, doctors, her sons trying to manipulate her (and scaring her at one point to draw a pistol on my uncle) accelerated her condition and left her in a state I can only describe as post traumatic.

    I hope this cure works. I pray it works. Been hopeful before.

    1. Re:I really hope this works, Alzheimer's is FUCKED by Miser · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm going to undo all my moderation to post this.

      100% agree with you. I have known relatives that have had to spend down all their assets to stay in a "memory care" unit when they could no longer be legitimately safe at home. To me, it's total bullshit. If this happens to me, give me something laced with something else and let me go to sleep permanently. Also, a underground safe to hide cash, as well as a dead mans switch for folks to find it when I'm gone.

      It's horrible to see everything you've worked for just flushed down the toilet for you to "just exist". Horrible way to live.

      Here's hoping there's a cure. Or even a "stop" - i.e. if you start experiencing symptoms, get this treatment and it stops the disease in its tracks. Reversal would be a holy grail but I'm not holding my breath.

  5. Re:Other studies have managed this too by apol · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Personally I see more hope in the personalized, drugless approaches, such as Dr. Bredesen's MEND protocol. For me large part of medical scientists are too obsessed about finding drugs and don't pay enough attention to alternatives.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p...

    https://chriskresser.com/new-h...

    https://www.aging-us.com/artic...

  6. Re:ten years can be an eternity by execthis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Wait for them to show up on eBay for $10.99.

    It will happen.

    This whole thing breathes new life into the question "What's the frequency, Kenneth?".