Researchers at the University of Tokyo created a new way to treat Alzheimer’s disease, which allows you to successfully deal with the accumulations of pathogenic amyloid proteins. As it is believed, the amyloids are associated with the death of neurons and severe symptoms are deadly and still incurable form of dementia. The article with the results of scientific work was published in the BRAIN magazine, briefly about the experiments told in a press release on MedicalXpress.
Scientists have introduced the catalyst of oxygenation directly into the brain of live mice suffering from analogue of Alzheimer’s disease, and then activated its light beam through the skull for 30 minutes daily. Therapy lasted one week. Analysis of the nervous tissue showed that the level of amyloid protein decreased significantly.
Catalyst destabilizes amyloid plaques, connecting to the pathogenic molecule of oxygen atoms, which changes in chemical bonds. It occurs with each other certain parts of the molecule, called the residues of histidine, and the characteristic folding structure of the amyloid is destroyed. The catalyst itself remains inert until the light is activated by the light, whose wavelength is close to the infrared spectrum. The destabilized amyloid itself is removed by microogly – immune brain cells.
The method allows you to fight with amyloids not only in the human brain, but in the whole body. According to the American Society of Clinical Oncology, each year in the United States, four thousand people are diagnosed with diseases known under the general name of amyloidosis. Catalyst for photoxygenation is able to remove the amyloid protein, regardless of when and where it was formed in the body.