QUEENSLAND researchers say they are a step closer to treating Alzheimer's disease.
Scientists at University of Queensland's Brain Institute (QBI) found that ultrasound scanning used with an antibody drug reduced Alzheimer's symptoms in mice.
The team discovered that ultrasound enables more of the medication to get to the brain to get rid of toxic proteins that cause the disease. Reducing these proteins can lead to an improvement in cognitive functions.
QBI director Pankaj Sah said the discovery was a "promising step towards future therapeutic treatments for dementia".
"Excitingly the research shows that ultrasound may also be a viable treatment for other disorders in which proteins aggregate in the brain - including Parkinson's and motor neuron diseases," Professor Sah said.
The team found that using the ultrasound opened up "the blood-brain barrier", a membrane which acts as a strong shield and can hamper drugs in the bloodstream getting into the brain.
The study's leader and director of QBI's Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research Jurgen Gotz the research could make expensive treatments of Alzheimer's more cost-effective.
"With vaccination trials in dementia currently ongoing elsewhere, the problem is that only 0.1 per cent of the therapeutic antibodies enter the brain, which would make a potential treatment for Alzheimer's very costly," Professor Gotz said.
The paper's lead author Dr Rebecca Nisbet said antibody therapies could cost an estimated $25,000 to $100,000 per patient per year, and their research could drastically reduce the cost of these treatments.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, with the number of dementia cases in Australia expected to reach 900,000 by 2050.
The UQ researchers are conducting ongoing work to translate the research into therapy for patients in coming years, but advise patients with Alzheimer's to contact their doctors.
Alzheimer's Australia CEO Maree McCabe said human trials would be at least five years away.