1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study? May 2012.
2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.
3. A 20% chance in this research. July 2013.
Dementia treatment hope after ultrasound, drug technique breakthrough
Australian researchers say they have made a substantial breakthrough in the possible treatment of dementia.
Key points:
- Using ultrasound with antibody drug reduced Alzheimer's symptoms in mice
- Human trials still needed to see if benefits translate to humans
- Technique could be applied to MS, Parkinson's, motor neuron disease, Huntington's disease
Scientists at the University of Queensland's Brain Institute (QBI) found using ultrasound scanning along with an antibody drug reduced Alzheimer's symptoms in mice.
The technique allowed more of the medication to get into the brain to clear out the proteins that cause Alzheimer's, Professor Jurgen Gotz from the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research at QBI said.
"Reducing the toxic proteins then leads to an improvement in cognitive functions, and this can obviously be translated to patients," he said.
Importantly, researchers found using the ultrasound opened up what is known as "the blood-brain barrier" — a membrane that usually stops drugs from the bloodstream from getting into the brain.
The barrier is there to protect the brain, but is also a major challenge for scientists trying to treat brain diseases.
It means the same ultrasound technique could potentially be used to treat other conditions such as Parkinson's and MS more effectively.
"We believe that an ultrasound device should be approved for the treatment of brain diseases," Professor Gotz said.
"This research could, in principle, be applied to other diseases with toxic protein build-ups such as Parkinson's disease, motor neuron disease or Huntington's disease."
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