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Imagine strapping on a high-tech helmet, lying on an MRI table and, after microbubbles bounce in your blood vessels and ultrasound waves are beamed at your brain, walking away with fewer symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
That may sound like it’s straight out of a science fiction movie, but it’s not. What’s called focused ultrasound technology is just one of the many avenues scientists are exploring in an ongoing quest to effectively treat the most common type of dementia. And a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests it may be able to help.
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Researchers at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute at West Virginia University found that when used alongside a new Alzheimer’s drug, focused ultrasound helped the medication do its job — clearing sticky, cell-disrupting amyloid plaques — more effectively in a small number of patients.
“We need to really explore and be bold in terms of the way we’re looking at Alzheimer’s, because the disease is not going away, it’s increasing,” says neurosurgeon Ali Rezai, M.D., executive chair of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute and a coauthor of the study.
The number of people living with dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, globally is expected to nearly triple by 2050, a 2021 report published in The Lancet predicts. And while two disease-modifying treatments have recently become available, it’s still unclear how beneficial they are to people living with Alzheimer’s.
“In the field, we’re certainly keeping all options open,” says Ronald Petersen, M.D., an Alzheimer’s expert and director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, who is not involved in focused ultrasound research. “Because treatments are not going to result in a silver bullet for Alzheimer’s disease.”