You will probably want to edit the title to add the qualifier "in mice". Results from mouse models are notorious for not generalizing to humans. That said, this looks interesting; thanks for bringing it to my attention. I definitely hope this research gets all the funding it needs, it is certainly a bet worth taking even if the chance of payoff is low.
In particular, this treatment seems predicated on the amyloid hypothesis, rather than the tau hypothesis; the amyloid hypothesis has yet to yield a drug which does anything in humans, last I heard...
Interesting method, disrupt the normal immune privilige of the brain and permiablize it to eliminate protein aggregates. Im assuming by restoring memory they mean memory formation rather than recovering lost ones. Interesting questions to be addressed in future research include:
How deep can you get theraputic levels of ultrasound before you damage the surface? Mice have small brains.
When you zap 1000+ cubic centimeters do you get damaging events piling up that are rare in any given less than 1 cubic centimeter mouse brain?
Is this a one off treatment or must it be administered repeatedly to stay ahead of reforming protein aggregates?
I would naievely and quite probably wrongly be worried about inducing autoimmunity but thats why we do studies and itd probably be totally worth it anyway.
"Exposure to flashing lights stimulates brain’s immune cells to clean up toxic proteins causing the disease, study finds"
"After being given one hour of flickering light each day for a week, the scientists saw a 60% reduction of harmful amyloid plaques in the brains of the mice.
Ed Mann, an associate professor of neuroscience at the University of Oxford, said: “I was surprised, and it’s exciting, that such a simple stimulus can target a molecular pathway and have such an effect in an hour.”" (in mice)
Gamma frequency entrainment attenuates amyloid load and modifies microglia- Science
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v540/n7632/full/nature20587.html
"Changes in gamma oscillations (20–50 Hz) have been observed in several neurological disorders. However, the relationship between gamma oscillations and cellular pathologies is unclear. Here we show reduced, behaviourally driven gamma oscillations before the onset of plaque formation or cognitive decline in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease."
The team reports fully restoring the memory function of 75 percent of the mice they tested it on, with zero damage to the surrounding brain tissue.
"We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics."
The team says they’re planning on starting trials with higher animal models, such as sheep, and hope to get their human trials underway in 2017.
http://www.sciencealert.com/new-alzheimer-s-treatment-fully-restores-memory-function