Breaking Boundaries: Ultrasound Treatments for Alzheimer's Disease
With society’s elderly population growing, the prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) with its associated cognitive deterioration will affect an increasing number of lives. Symptoms of memory loss, confusion, and even personality change arise largely because of two types of brain lesions—amyloid-β plaques and Tau protein tangles—which lead to neuron death [1]. Despite significant efforts to combat this devastating disease, there is currently no known cure or preventive treatment.
In fact, the field has experienced some significant setbacks recently. In October 2015, Pfizer ended a Phase II trial of an AD drug that is supposed to preserve cognitive ability [2] because early results indicated that it would fail the endpoint efficacy criteria established at the beginning of the study. Axovant Sciences, a biotechnology corporation also developing pharmaceuticals for dementia, saw a steep drop in share prices following Pfizer’s announcement since Axovant’s lead investigational drug works through a similar mechanism to Pfizer’s terminated drug [3].
While multiple drugs have failed, hope remains. Now, two minds out of Queensland, Australia propose a groundbreaking solution for reversing AD-related dementia, one that suggests pharmaceutical drugs might not be the answer after all. Reporting in the journal Science Translational Medicine , researchers have harnessed scanning ultrasound technology to repeatedly open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), clearing amyloid-β plaques and restoring memory function [4].
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Breaching the Barrier
Konofagou and her colleagues at Columbia University used a focused ultrasound technique to penetrate the seemingly impermeable BBB [5]. The ultrasound technique requires coupling with microbubbles, which are used as ultrasound contrast agents. These microbubbles—composed of lipid shells and gaseous centers—are inserted intravenously. Administered ultrasound pulses produce focal vibrations that cause the microbubbles to expand and contract, which essentially opens tight junctions in vasculature and enables diffusion across the BBB [4]. By demonstrating that the BBB can, in fact, be disrupted, Konofagou’s research raised the possibility of treating many neurological disorders non-invasively.