Lab employees and researchers at the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute of West Virginia University made groundbreaking discoveries in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease. The new treatment, which will help remove amyloid-beta plaques from patients’ brains, will allow for better and more focused treatment to take place to stop the spread of the disease.
The treatment, which works through a mix of focused ultrasound treatments and antibody treatments, was first published in the New England Journal of Medicine on January 11. Now, hope is beginning to spread through the Alzheimer’s community as charitable donations and government grants have led to a massive breakthrough.
The Director of the Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, Dr. Ali Rezai, spoke to Fox News Digital to explain the new treatment and to help readers understand the significance of his team’s findings. Doing his best to make it simple for folks to understand, he said, “This was a first in human safety and feasibility study in three participants demonstrating that the BBB opening can accelerate clearance of beta-amyloid plaques.”
The BBB is the blood-brain barrier. The BBB’s job is to protect the brain from receiving unwanted blood and to allow the passage of certain amino acids and molecules, like glucose, that are necessary for the brain to function properly.
Rezai continued, saying, “Non-invasive focused ultrasound is an outpatient procedure that allows for targeted delivery of therapeutics to the brain that can potentially accelerate the benefit of the antibody treatment in Alzheimer’s disease.”
Using ultrasound to open the BBB does not come without risks to the patient. Rezai, who is fully aware of those risks, assured readers that the pathway is only briefly open before closing itself off through natural processes to once again protect the patient’s brain.
Rezai, who continued explaining the new treatment, said, “We verified with MRI scans that the BBB opening was temporary and it closed 24 to 48 hours after the FUS procedure.” That statement means that the side effects of the treatment can be made manageable.
Dr. James Galvin is a brain expert working in the University of Miami Health System, and he took some time to comment to Fox News Digital about the magnitude of West Virginia University’s findings. He started by saying, “A study like this is important because it demonstrates that there may be safe ways to increase drug delivery to the brain without any serious adverse effects.”
Galvin continued, “Focused ultrasound has been used in other treatment paradigms for brain diseases such as Parkinson’s disease and brain tumors… It was also designed as a safety study and not appropriately powered to detect significant clinical changes. It is still too early to make any specific recommendations, but I am excited to see if there are planned follow-up studies with a larger number of patients.”
The medical world is jubilant after the exciting findings that Dr. Ali Rezai and his team uncovered. With Alzheimer’s disease taking such a toll in America and in the rest of the world, this research is bringing much-needed hope to those battling against the affliction.
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