Non-invasive potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease
2021-06-24
(Press-News.org) Ultrasound can overcome some of the detrimental effects of ageing and dementia without the need to cross the blood-brain barrier, Queensland Brain Institute researchers have found.
Professor Jürgen Götz led a multidisciplinary team at QBI's Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research who showed low-intensity ultrasound effectively restored cognition without opening the barrier in mice models.
The findings provide a potential new avenue for the non-invasive technology and will help clinicians tailor medical treatments that consider an individual's disease progression and cognitive decline.
"Historically, we have been using ultrasound together with small gas-filled bubbles to open the almost-impenetrable blood-brain barrier and get therapeutics from the bloodstream into the brain," Professor Götz said.
The new research involved a designated control group who received ultrasound without the barrier-opening microbubbles.
"The entire research team was surprised by the remarkable restoration in cognition," he said.
"We conclude therapeutic ultrasound is a non-invasive way to enhance cognition in the elderly."
Ageing is associated with impaired cognition and a reduction in the learning induced plasticity of the signalling between neurons called long-term potentiation (LTP).
Dr Daniel Blackmore, senior postdoctoral researcher on the team, said the new research aimed to use ultrasound to restore LTP and improved spatial learning in aged mice.
Professor Götz said the brain was "not particularly accessible", but ultrasound provided a tool for overcoming challenges like the blood-brain barrier.
"Using ultrasound could enhance cognition independently of clearing amyloid and tau, which form plaques and tangles in people with Alzheimer's disease," he said.
"Microbubbles will continue to be used in combination with ultrasound in ongoing Alzheimer's research."
About 400,000 people in Australia have dementia and numbers are projected to increase to one million by 2050, with ageing the single biggest risk factor.
Previous research has shown the long-term safety of ultrasound technology and that pathological changes and cognitive deficits could be improved by using ultrasound to treat Alzheimer's disease.
Professor Götz said there were still questions about the differences between normal "physiological" ageing and the "pathological" ageing that happens in Alzheimer's disease.
''We believe there may be some overlap between physiological and pathological ageing in the brain and the potential for this to be corrected with ultrasound is meaningful for those living with Alzheimer's disease," he said.
''We are taking these findings and implementing them in our Alzheimer's research as we go forward to clinical trials.''
Professor Götz's research team aims to understand how brain diseases begin and their progression at molecular and cellular levels in the hope of ultimately developing therapies.
The research has been published in Nature journal Molecular Psychiatry.
INFORMATION:
Watch the research explainer video: https://youtu.be/Ew7-islGo_o
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-06-24
Are the traditional practices tied to endangered species at risk of being lost? The answer is yes, according to the authors of an ethnographic study published in the University of Guam peer-reviewed journal Pacific Asia Inquiry. But the authors also say a recovery plan can protect both the species as well as the traditional CHamoru practice of consuming them.
Else Demeulenaere, lead author of the study and associate director of the UOG Center for Island Sustainability, presented on their findings during the Marianas Terrestrial Conservation Conference on June 8.
Strong ...
2021-06-24
In the recent decade, scientists have paid more attention to studying light harvest for producing novel bionic materials or integrating naturally biological components into synthetic systems. Inspiration is the imitation of natural photosynthesis in green plants, algae, and cyanobacteria to convert light energy into chemical energy. Photosystem II (PSII) is a light-intervened protein complex responsible for the light harvest and water splitting to release O2, protons, and electrons. The development of PSII-based biomimetic assembly in vitro is favorable for the investigation of photocatalysis, biological solar cells, and bionic photosynthesis, further help us reveal more secret of photosynthesis.
The combination of PSII and artificially synthetic structures is successful for ...
2021-06-24
Ishikawa, Japan - Nanostructured metal surface has novel physical and chemical properties, which have sparked scientific interest for heterogeneous catalysis, biosensors, and electrocatalysis. The fabrication process can influence the shapes and sizes of metal nanostructures. Among various fabrication processes, the electrochemical deposition technique is widely used for clean metal nanostructures. Applying the technique, a team of researchers led by Dr. Yuki Nagao, Associate Professor at Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) and Md. Mahmudul Hasan, a PhD student at JAIST, succeeded to construct Pd-based catalysts having unique morphology.
In this study, the team has successfully synthesized Christmas-tree-shaped palladium nanostructures on the GCE ...
2021-06-24
Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite responsible for toxoplasmosis, is capable of infecting almost all cell types. It is estimated that up to 30% of the world's population is chronically infected, the vast majority asymptomatically. However, infection during pregnancy can result in severe developmental pathology in the unborn child. Like the other members of the large phylum of Apicomplexa, Toxoplasma gondii is an obligate intracellular parasite which, to survive, must absolutely penetrate its host's cells and hijack their functions to its own advantage. Understanding how the parasite manages to enter host cells offers new opportunities to develop more effective prevention and control strategies than those currently available. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration ...
2021-06-24
An international study led by Helmholtz Zentrum München has revealed the structure of a membrane-remodeling protein that builds and maintains photosynthetic membranes. These fundamental insights lay the groundwork for bioengineering efforts to strengthen plants against environmental stress, helping to sustaining human food supply and fight against climate change.
Plants, algae, and cyanobacteria perform photosynthesis, using the energy of sunlight to produce the oxygen and biochemical energy that power most life on Earth. They also adsorb carbon dioxide (CO?) from the atmosphere, counteracting the accumulation of this greenhouse gas. However, climate change ...
2021-06-24
Men - more often than women - need passion to succeed at things. At the same time, boys are diagnosed as being on the autism spectrum four times as often as girls.
Both statistics may be related to dopamine, one of our body's neurotransmitters.
"This is interesting. Research shows a more active dopamine system in most men" than in women, says Hermundur Sigmundsson, a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology's (NTNU)Department of Psychology.
He is behind a new study that addresses gender differences in key motivating factors for what it takes to become good at something. The study uses men's and women's differing activity in the dopamine system as an explanatory model.
"We looked at gender differences around passion, self-discipline ...
2021-06-24
Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues have shown that adaptation to similar environments hardly involves similar genomic positions when species are distantly related. The team investigated recurrent adaptations of wildlife birds' mitochondria to high altitude, migration, diving, wintering, and flight. Repeatable substitutions are rather a coincidence than adaptation, which confirms the scientific opinion that distant species "choose" different ways of similar trait evolution. The paper was published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.
If an organism wants to survive in unusual conditions, such as oxygen starvation typical for high altitudes or elevation of metabolism rate due to extreme temperatures, it has to adapt. If different species meet similar environment ...
2021-06-24
Osaka, Japan - Scientists from the Department of Physics and the Research Center for Nuclear Physics (RCNP) at Osaka University, in collaboration with Kyoto University, used alpha particle inelastic scattering to show that the theorized "5α condensed state" does exist in neon-20. This work may help us obtain a better understanding the low-density nucleon many-body systems.
All elements besides hydrogen and helium must have been fused inside the nuclear furnace of a star. The yield during these reactions of carbon-12, which has six protons and six neutrons, is increased by an ...
2021-06-24
Early in the pandemic, it was expected that satellite imagery around the world would show cleaner air as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. But not all pollutants were taken out of circulation. For tiny airborne-particle pollution, known as PM 2.5, researchers using NASA data found that variability from meteorology obscured the lockdown signals when observed from space.
"Intuitively you would think if there is a major lockdown situation, that we would see dramatic changes, but we didn't," said Melanie Hammer, a visiting research associate at Washington University in St. Louis who led the study. "It was kind of a surprise ...
2021-06-24
Tooth loss is often accepted as a natural part of aging, but what if there was a way to better identify those most susceptible without the need for a dental exam?
New research led by investigators at Harvard School of Dental Medicine suggests that machine learning tools can help identify those at greatest risk for tooth loss and refer them for further dental assessment in an effort to ensure early interventions to avert or delay the condition.
The study, published June 18 in PLOS ONE, compared five algorithms using a different combination of variables to screen for risk. The results showed those that factored medical characteristics and socioeconomic variables, such as race, education, arthritis, and diabetes, outperformed algorithms that relied on dental clinical indicators alone.
"Our ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Non-invasive potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease
