New Alzheimer’s trials point to potential breakthrough

A new technique called GENUS (Gamma Entrainment Using Sensory stimuli), utilising soundwaves and flickering lights to encourage brain activity and slow down Alzheimer’s disease, has proven successful in trials in mice, and has paved the way for human trials to begin. The method increases gamma power which reduced the build-up of amyloid and tau proteins associated with the disease and improving brain function in mice. The MIT research team have now started initial trials on healthy human subjects, and already early results have shown GENUS can safely increase gamma rhythm power and synchrony across the brain.
Prof Bart De Strooper, director of the UK Dementia Research Institute at University College London, said: “It is fantastic to hear of these new positive results emerging from the aducanumab trials. We currently have no effective treatments to slow or halt the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and I hope this signifies a turning point. It is encouraging for the field that the tremendous work delivered to target amyloid beta appears to be validated in this trial and we should now redouble our efforts to tackle this central problem in Alzheimer’s disease, alongside other important contributors.”
Research lead Li-Huei Tsai, a neuroscientist at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, said: “We hope our findings in mice will translate to helping people with Alzheimer’s disease, though it’s certainly too soon to tell and many things that have worked in mice have not worked in people. but there also may be exciting implications for fundamental neuroscience in understanding why stimulating a specific rhythm via light or sound can cause profound changes in multiple types of cells in the brain.”