Ultrasound Could Help Improve Dementia Symptoms

Mouse models, so you'll have to see if your doctor contacts these researchers doing human testing. You will need this;

Your chances of getting dementia.

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.

Ultrasound Could Help Improve Dementia Symptoms

Neuroscience NewsJuly 20, 2018

FeaturedNeurologyNeuroscienceneurotechOpen Neuroscience Articles5 min read

 

 Summary: Researchers report applying ultrasound to the whole brain improves cognitive dysfunction in mouse models of dementia. A clinical trial is currently underway to test the effectiveness in humans with the neurodegenerative disease.
Source: Tohoku University.
Ultrasound waves applied to the whole brain improve cognitive dysfunction in mice with conditions simulating vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. The research, conducted by scientists at Tohoku University in Japan, suggests that this type of therapy may also benefit humans.
The team, led by cardiologist Hiroaki Shimokawa, found that applying low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) to the whole brain of the mice improved blood vessel formation and nerve cell regeneration without having obvious side effects.
“The LIPUS therapy is a non-invasive physiotherapy that could apply to high-risk elderly patients without the need for surgery or anaesthesia, and could be used repeatedly,” says Shimokawa.
Dementia affects about 50 million people worldwide, with 10 million new cases occurring every year. But there are currently no curative treatments available for vascular dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, the most common causes of dementia. Also, the cells lining the brain’s blood vessels are tightly packed, forming a blood-brain barrier that prevents large molecules from crossing into the brain tissue. This limits the types of drugs and cell therapies that could be made available to treat dementia.

This is the LIPUS treatment system. NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Hiroaki Shimokawa.

Shimokawa and his team had conducted previous studies showing that LIPUS improved blood vessel formation in pigs with myocardial ischemia, a condition where there is reduced blood flow to the heart. Other studies have reported that LIPUS increases the production of proteins involved in nerve cell survival and growth, in addition to a role in promoting nerve regeneration. Focusing LIPUS treatment on a region in the brain called the hippocampus, which is involved in memory, has also been found to improve dementia in mice, but the details of how it does this need to be more fully investigated.
The Tohoku University team wanted to find out if whole-brain rather than focused LIPUS is effective in treating mouse models of dementia, and if it was, what was happening at the molecular levels to achieve this.

They found that cognitive impairment markedly improved in mice with conditions similar to vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease when LIPUS was applied to the whole brain three times a day for 20 minutes each time. The mice with vascular dementia received the treatment on the first, third and fifth days following a surgical procedure that limited the brain’s blood supply. The mice with a condition simulating Alzheimer’s disease in humans received 11 LIPUS treatments over a period of three months.
At the molecular level, genes related to the cells lining blood vessels were turned on. Also, there was increased expression of an enzyme involved in blood vessel formation and a protein involved in nerve cell survival and growth.
The researchers conclude that their study, recently published in the journal Brain Stimulation, provides the first experimental evidence that whole-brain LIPUS therapy markedly improves cognitive dysfunctions without serious side effects by enhancing specific cells related to dementia’s pathology.
The first clinical trials to evaluate the effectiveness and safety of the LIPUS treatment are already underway.

About this neuroscience research article

Funding: Funding provided by Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development.
Source: Hiroaki Shimokawa – Tohoku University
Publisher: Organized by NeuroscienceNews.com.
Image Source: NeuroscienceNews.com image is credited to Hiroaki Shimokawa.
Original Research: Open access research for “Whole-brain low-intensity pulsed ultrasound therapy markedly improves cognitive dysfunctions in mouse models of dementia – Crucial roles of endothelial nitric oxide synthase” by Kumiko Eguchi, Tomohiko Shindo, Kenta Ito, Tsuyoshi Ogata, Ryo Kurosawa, Yuta Kagaya, Yuto Monma, Sadamitsu Ichijo, Sachie Kasukabe, Satoshi Miyata, Takeo Yoshikawa, Kazuhiko Yanai, Hirofumi Taki, Hiroshi Kanai, Noriko Osumi, and Hiroaki Shimokawa in Brain Stimulation. Published May 21 2018.
doi:10.1016/j.brs.2018.05.012