“Alzheimer’s disease and many other diseases that cause dementia are characterised by the gradual accumulation of harmful proteins in the brain over decades. Now that we can safely enhance the brain’s own clearance system, which gradually becomes less effective with age, while people are still healthy, it may be possible in future to prevent these diseases, or at least slow their progression,” says Professor Vesa Kiviniemi, head of the Functional Neuroimaging Research Group at the University of Oulu.
Previous studies in mice have shown that temporarily lowering blood pressure can enhance the clearance of cerebrospinal fluid and the large molecules it contains from the brain. These findings provided the basis for a study combining blood pressure-lowering medication with Piezo1-targeted whole-body vibration stimulation.
The effects of the treatment were studied in 29 healthy adult volunteers using multimodal magnetic resonance imaging, physiological measurements and blood-based biomarkers originating in the brain.
Small study but interesting finding. ABN
