New Alzheimer’s treatment fully restores memory function

[SirLinksALot]

SOURCE: SCIENCE ALERT

URL: http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment-fully-restores-memory-function


Australian researchers have come up with a non-invasive ultrasound technology that clears the brain of neurotoxic amyloid plaques - structures that are responsible for memory loss and a decline in cognitive function in Alzheimer’s patients.

If a person has Alzheimer’s disease, it’s usually the result of a build-up of two types of lesions - amyloid plaques, and neurofibrillary tangles. Amyloid plaques sit between the neurons and end up as dense clusters of beta-amyloid molecules, a sticky type of protein that clumps together and forms plaques.

Neurofibrillary tangles are found inside the neurons of the brain, and they’re caused by defective tau proteins that clump up into a thick, insoluble mass. This causes tiny filaments called microtubules to get all twisted, which disrupts the transportation of essential materials such as nutrients and organelles along them, just like when you twist up the vacuum cleaner tube.

As we don’t have any kind of vaccine or preventative measure for Alzheimer’s - a disease that affects 343,000 people in Australia, and 50 million worldwide - it’s been a race to figure out how best to treat it, starting with how to clear the build-up of defective beta-amyloid and tau proteins from a patient’s brain. Now a team from the Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) at the University of Queensland have come up with a pretty promising solution for removing the former.

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 activate. Microglila cells are basically waste-removal cells, so they’re able to clear out the toxic beta-amyloid clumps that are responsible for the worst symptoms of Alzheimer’s.

The team reports fully restoring the memory function 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 recognise new objects, and one to get them to remember the places they should avoid.

"We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics," one of the team, Jürgen Götz, said in a press release. "The word ‘breakthrough’ is often misused, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach."

The team says they’re planning on starting trials with higher animal models, such as sheep, and hope to get their human trials underway in 2017.

You can hear an ABC radio interview with the team here:

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programitem/peOWD0e2P3?play=true

[bolobaby]

Let's start human trials faster, dammit. My dad is deteriorating fast. Believe me, he's going to have issues anyway, so if there are potential side effects, we'll take the damn chance!

(So frustrating to get a new "breakthrough" article every week on this cursed disease, but never seeing anything come to fruition!)

[Luis Gonzalez]

My mother died from this horrible disease in November last year after a long and horrific battle with it. I can think of nothing more terrifying than the living dead state that she suffered through during the last stages of the disease.

these trials need to be accelerated.

[Polly Ticks]

This is amazing news.  I will add my prayers for the trials to begin sooner rather than later and to be proven successful.

[Polly Ticks]

My mother died from this horrible disease in November last year after a long and horrific battle with it. I can think of nothing more terrifying than the living dead state that she suffered through during the last stages of the disease.

these trials need to be accelerated.

I'm very sorry for your loss, Luis.

[goodwithagun]

I'd like to know what's causing it to begin with. Did we always have Alzheimer's but now we just keep track of things better? I'm a huge skeptic of our food quality and the fact that almost everything we eat comes in plastic containers. Add to that the lowered cholesterol levels allowing more cholesterol drugs to be pushed on patients, when our brains need cholesterol. I could go on and on, but I won't

[r9etb]

I'd like to know what's causing it to begin with. Did we always have Alzheimer's but now we just keep track of things better? I'm a huge skeptic of our food quality and the fact that almost everything we eat comes in plastic containers.

Could just be that people used to die a lot earlier than they do now, before Alzheimer's really kicked in; and probably a lot of people did have it, but it didn't have a fancy name and was undiagnosed/undiagnosable -- it was just "senility" or "second childhood."

Still, it would not surprise me if there were an environmental component to it -- there are so many odd chemicals in food and water these days (e.g., estrogen in the water supply).

[mountaineer]

It used to be "hardening of the arteries," I guess in the belief (before anyone knew about the plaques) that an old confused person just wasn't getting enough blood to the brain.

I certainly hope this breakthrough is what we've been looking for. My father died at 69 of early-onset Alzheimers/Lewy body variant and even though we've been told his condition isn't hereditary, my sister and I keep looking over our shoulders (so to speak).

[Luis Gonzalez]

I'm very sorry for your loss, Luis.

Thank you.

[Dirt for sale]

Goodwithagun,
This plaque which builds in the brain of Alzheimer's victims has been found to be aluminum. Boiling (fluoridated) water in an aluminum pot alone increases aluminum concentration in the water incredibly, and most of course don't know this. Fluoride is derived from the toxic waste (cleaning the smokestacks) at good old Alcoa. The cause is most certainly environmental. Tofu has more aluminum in it than any other food, though nobody seems to mention this. There was suspicion that gulf war syndrome was caused in large part by cases of diet coke left to bake in the desert sun before consumption.
The treatment sounds promising. My grandmother on my mother's side is afflicted with this ... toxic buildup of aluminum in the brain.

[goodwithagun]

All of our water for consumption goes through the Berkey first. I've been thinking about adding the fluoride filters.

[mountaineer]

Alzheimer’s Disease: Period Pain Drug Cures Symptoms In Mice, New Research Shows
By Seerat Chabba
 08/13/16 AT 3:31 AM

The incurable Alzheimer’s disease may now have a cure. A new research by the University of Manchester shows that the most common form of dementia can be fully cured with an anti-inflammatory drug, commonly used for period pain.

Almost 7.5 million new cases of Alzheimer’s — a disease that causes acute problems with memory, thinking ability and behavior — diagnosed around the world every year. In the United States, about five million people currently suffer from the degenerative disease that has claimed one in three senior citizens with some form of dementia.

The team, led by Dr. David Brough, worked with mice to find that a common Non-Steroidal Anti Inflammatory Drug (NSAID) routinely used to relieve menstrual pain — mefenamic acid — completely reversed the inflammation of the brain and lost memory in the specimen.

Mefenamic acid is available as a generic drug and is sold under a variety of brand names.

For the study, 20 mice were genetically altered to exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Ten of these were treated with mefenamic acid by using a mini-pump under their skin for one month, while the other 10 mice were treated in the same way with a placebo.

Researchers found that the mice treated with mefenamic acid saw a complete reversal of memory loss, while the placebo group’s condition remained unchanged.  ...

Rest of story at IB Times

[r9etb]

For the study, 20 mice were genetically altered to exhibit symptoms of Alzheimer’s....

Alas, a mouse study.  It sounds a bit like diabetes, which they've cured in mice a many different ways.  But mice aren't humans....