“Ultrasound Blood-Brain Barrier Opening and Aducanumab in Alzheimer’s Disease”, Ali R. Rezai, Pierre-Francois D’Haese, Victor Finomore, Jeffrey Carpenter, Manish Ranjan, Kirk Wilhelmsen, Rashi I. Mehta, Peng Wang, Umer Najib, Camila Vieira Ligo Teixeira, Tasneem Arsiwala, Abdul Tarabishy, Padmashree Tirumalai, Daniel O. Claassen, Sally Hodder, Marc W. Haut2024-01-04 (Alzheimer’s, neuroscience)⁠:

[media] Anti-amyloid antibodies have been used to reduce cerebral amyloid-beta (Aβ) load in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

We applied focused ultrasound with each of 6 monthly aducanumab infusions to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier with the goal of enhancing amyloid removal in selected brain regions in 3 participants over a period of 6 months.

…We observed an average 32% reduction in SUVR (for the 3 participants combined) after 26 weeks in the regions that had received treatment to open the blood-brain barrier and 6 combination treatments…The reduction in the level of Aβ was numerically greater in regions treated with focused ultrasound than in the homologous regions in the contralateral hemisphere that were not treated with focused ultrasound, as measured by fluorine-18 florbetaben positron-emission tomography.

Cognitive tests and safety evaluations were conducted over a period of 30–180 days after treatment.