Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

newatlas.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 43 posts

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#31

Post by NickM »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #21
maxander wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably more harm than good- you probably don’t want ultrasonic waves shaking your neurons around without a good reason. This sounds like a “kick a TV and it works again” sort of technology.

You might not need ultrasound though, eg https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-02391-6 . I can't find the link now, on mobile, but I found reference to using low frequency sound/light and that (anecdotally) individuals had tried this with their Alzheimer suffering relatives and had great success, like miraculous recovery of memory. I wonder if there is a natural occupational exposure (CRT TV?) that could give ev…

There was a great Radiolab episode about the lower-frequency stuff. IIRC, the hypothesis there is that you can stimulate certain types of brainwaves that tend to run on similar frequencies, so that seems like it's probably working via a separate mechanism from the proposed effects of the ultrasound treatment, since ultrasound is way too high-frequency to correspond to any known brainwave frequencies. Perhaps both treatments could be complementary, though, assuming they both pan out.

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#32

Post by dr_dshiv »

rf15 wrote: post #12
newsbinator wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conversely it would be shocking if most things that work on mice worked in the same ways on humans.

what are you thinking of specifically? I mean genetically and functionally we are incredibly similar as mammals. Most poisons/etc. work the same for example.

I saw a lecture recently that sought to compare the difference between mice neurons and human neurons. They were surprised to find that the capacitance of the neural membranes was substantially different. They showed that populations of human neurons we're capable of entraining to frequencies exceeding 1000hz, whereas mouse neural populations capped out below 300hz. I apologize I don't remember the researchers name, but it was at a Human Brain Project conference in Amsterdam.

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#33

Post by gammateam »

WhompingWindows wrote: post #27
olliej wrote: post #14

Ok so the article says this successfully destroys the amyloid plaques, but does it help cognition or slow the disease? Specifically for “slowing” it seems entirely plausible that breaking up the plaques will allow misfolded proteins to migrate (due to reduced size). Ignoring entirely the there have been multiple drugs that successfully reduced amyloid build up, with no actual benefit. Eg they did exactly what they we…

There's a theory on beta amyloid that it's merely the by-product of other causative agents, and that as a surrogate end-point for Alzheimer's outcomes, it's not nearly as useful as symptom reduction, as you state. My professor who studied AD and dementia likened beta-amyloid to the garbage leftover in a stadium or outdoor concert: you know something went down, this leftover trash isn't great, but hard to determine wh…

Plaque on your teeth is a symptom too:

Do what you can daily, but let a dentist break it up periodically.

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#34

Post by petra »

jf- wrote: post #18
olliej wrote: post #14

Ok so the article says this successfully destroys the amyloid plaques, but does it help cognition or slow the disease? Specifically for “slowing” it seems entirely plausible that breaking up the plaques will allow misfolded proteins to migrate (due to reduced size). Ignoring entirely the there have been multiple drugs that successfully reduced amyloid build up, with no actual benefit. Eg they did exactly what they we…

It’s moving to a phase I trial, that means it’s just being tested for tolerability and adverse effects. A firm conclusion about outcome won’t be available until a phase III trial is completed, that’s years down the line. So we don’t know, but looks promising.

Assuming this gets "breakthrough therapy" designation how many years down the line will it be available ?

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#35

Post by jf- »

petra wrote: post #34
jf- wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s moving to a phase I trial, that means it’s just being tested for tolerability and adverse effects. A firm conclusion about outcome won’t be available until a phase III trial is completed, that’s years down the line. So we don’t know, but looks promising.

Assuming this gets "breakthrough therapy" designation how many years down the line will it be available ?

Well it's not a drug, and I assume that they're using previously approved medical devices to apply it. It seems to me to be more like a new surgical technique. In that case it may just be a matter of finding a physician willing to apply it, though without safety or efficacy data I would expect that number to be hovering around zero.

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#36

Post by sdenton4 »

maxander wrote: post #4
jobigoud wrote: post #2

Is there speculation on what this would do to a healthy brain?

Probably more harm than good- you probably don’t want ultrasonic waves shaking your neurons around without a good reason. This sounds like a “kick a TV and it works again” sort of technology.

Indeed; the 'open the blood-brain barrier' motivation sounds fscking scary; the barrier is there for a reason, and you'd be opening yourself to totally unknown risks in the process.

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#37

Post by bitwize »

heyjudy wrote: post #7
ganeshkrishnan wrote: post #3

Alzheimer is weird in that plenty of treatment works in mice but fails in humans. I suspect it's primarily because we do not fully understand the cause of Alzheimer.

Most likely there is no singular cause, but a slew of contributing factors that prevent amyloid clearance and promote plaque formation. That's why overlapping, holistic solutions like the Bredesen protocol, ketagenic diets and now possibly ultrasound are the best treatment than waiting for a panacea that is unlikely to ever exist.

And don't forget the vipassana and rolfing!

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#39

Post by JamesBarney »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #22
JamesBarney wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a kick the TV type of technology. It's causing the microglia to activate, and I doubt it's causing any neuroinjury. Because the last people you want to injure are people with Alzheimer's.

Many treatments of severe conditions do substantial harm, which is considered acceptable for the benefits. Extreme examples are chemotherapy, i.e. giving poison to cancer patients, and radiotherapy, i.e. irradiating them. The healthy cells can take it, the cancer cells not so much. Statistically.

Yeah but this isn't chemotherapy, and with chemotherapy you are literally trying to kill cells.

Re: Breakthrough ultrasound treatment to reverse dementia moves to human trials

#40

Post by JamesBarney »

jf- wrote: post #19
JamesBarney wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is because our mouse models of Alzheimer disease are terrible. And pretty much everything we've tried has been aimed at beta-amyloid. I think there is a better chance for this therapy because of the way it works, by transition the microglia over to an anti-inflammatory mode. If this procedure passed safety trials I wouldn't be surprised if a similar therapy worked for schizophrenia, anxiety, and depression.

I agree that various kinds of immune modulation will be a huge part of medicine in the future. Promising results vs cancer, seems plausible you could teach or program the immune system to attack anything in the body once you’ve identified it. Controlling autoimmunity will also be a challenge.

They've already started doing this with cancer. The problem is the cancer evolves to stop producing the identifiers the immune system was using to determine what to kill.
Post reply on HN