AUSTIN: Scientists believe they may have found a new weapon in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease — not in the form of a drug but in focused beams of ultrasound.
While the approach has only been tested in mice, researchers said it proved surprisingly good at clearing tangles of plaques linked to Alzheimer’s in the animals’ brains and improving their memory, as measured by tests such as navigating a maze.
In the past, high-energy ultrasound has been combined with injected microbubbles, which vibrate in response to sound waves, to get drugs across the so-called blood brain barrier.
But the new research is the first demonstration that ultrasound alone might have a beneficial effect in the memory-robbing condition…