This was published 1 year ago
Alzheimer’s trial a ‘stepping stone’ to eventual treatment
By Stuart Layt
An initial trial is under way in Brisbane for a potential treatment for Alzheimer’s disease, using ultrasound to shake the brain awake.
Years of research from the team at the University of Queensland’s Queensland Brain Institute will be put to the test with a safety trial of 12 people with the degenerative brain disease over the next year.
Professor Peter Nestor demonstrating how the ultrasound device is used to treat Alzheimer’s patients.Credit: University of Queensland
Research leader Professor Juergen Gotz said they use specially calibrated ultrasound to target an area in the back of the brain that is affected early in the course of Alzheimer’s disease.
“You have a lot of different cells which are impacted [by Alzheimer’s] in the brain, and they also respond to ultrasound,” he said.
“The ultrasound stimulates proteins which sit in the membranes of different cell types, with the consequence that those cells release things which stimulate neighbouring cells.”
In mouse models, this cascading effect has seen an increase in brain plasticity, and a corresponding improvement in cognitive function.
UQ Professor Jürgen Götz has been developing the ultrasound treatment technique for several years.Credit: University of Queensland
The trial will be held at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane under the guidance of neurologist Professor Peter Nestor.
He said the trial will not be looking at efficacy but rather safety, making sure the technique does not harm human brains in an unexpected way.
“Twelve people might sound like a small trial but it’s quite large for a safety trial,” he said.
“Because it’s a preliminary trial there’s no placebo group, it’s all about treating the patients and seeing how they tolerate the treatment.”
Patients will be aged between 50 and 85, and will be suffering from moderate to severe Alzheimer’s but still capable of personally giving consent, and will receive the treatment four times spaced out fortnightly.
The patients will be staggered over the 12 months to allow the researchers to study the effects of the treatment on each patient individually.
Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia and the second leading cause of death in Australia, and the hunt for some way to treat the disease is intense.
There is currently no treatment which can reverse the degeneration of the brain it causes, and limited options to temporarily halt the progression of the disease.
Gotz said they are still a long way off from having a viable treatment method, but their research had been very promising and they were excited to be taking the next step to proving it could help people struggling with the disease.
“This is a long journey, and this safety trial is a stepping stone on that journey,” he said.
“There’s more work to be done, more trials in the future, more basic science needs to be done, but hopefully there is a reward at the end of the journey.”