Abstract
IntroductionUltrasound for the brain is a revolutionary therapeutic concept. The first clinical data indicate that 2–4 weeks of therapy with transcranial pulse stimulation (TPS) improve functional networks and cognitive performance of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients for up to 3 months. No data currently exist on possible benefits concerning brain morphology, namely the cortical atrophy characteristic of AD.MethodsWe performed a pre‐/post‐therapy analysis of cortical thickness in a group of N = 17 AD patients.ResultsWe found a significant correlation between neuropsychological improvement and cortical thickness increase in AD‐critical brain areas.DiscussionAD patients who benefit from TPS appear to manifest reduced cortical atrophy within the default mode network in particular, whose memory‐related subsystems are believed to be disrupted in AD. TPS may therefore hold promise as a new add‐on therapy for AD.
Highlights
Ultrasound for the brain is a revolutionary therapeutic concept
Based on the recent evidence of functional improvement in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, we investigate a possible effect of ultrasound stimulation on cortical thickness in those same patients
Focusing on the regions of interest suggested by our previous study, we found significant correlations between changes in the neuropsychological corrected total score (CTS) score and in the cortical thickness of structures of the AD-critical default mode network, namely of the left superior parietal lobule (r = 0.70 [0.40 0.85], P = .0017) and left precuneus (r = 0.39 [0.10 0.80], P = .03), with only the left superior parietal lobule being significant after correcting for multiple testing (Figure 1, Table 1)
Summary
Ultrasound for the brain is a revolutionary therapeutic concept. The first clinical data indicate that 2–4 weeks of therapy with transcranial pulse stimulation (TPS) improve functional networks and cognitive performance of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients for up to 3 months. Ultrasound for the brain is a revolutionary new therapeutic concept Transcranial techniques such as high-intensity focused ultrasound are already in clinical use for non-invasive focal surgery, and clinical feasibility studies exist for blood-brain barrier opening for targeted local drug applications or local gene therapy.[1,4] Very recently, a first clinical study has presented a third major modality of ultrasound application: therapeutic brain activation in Alzheimer’s disease (AD).[2] This study applied a novel pulsed ultrasound technique, transcranial pulse stimulation (TPS).[3] There were two major outcomes: (1) memory improvements up to 3 months post-stimulation, and (2) neurophysiological functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) evidence for improved brain activity and memory network connectivity.
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