Cognitive carbonation, maybe?
Sure looked like it on the scan.
The patient on the receiving end acted like it, too.
She was more aware, it seemed.
And, just as important — maybe more so, even — it also appeared that the intellectual light had returned to the eyes of the patient, who was 61 when she consented to the procedure.
Her eyes, her husband said, had taken on a dullish cast after the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s a couple of years before.
She was 58 when she found out, and didn’t have a family history of the illness. She made history, however.
The woman was also the first in the world to undergo the procedure.
Yes, the world.
Dr. Ali Rezai allowed his eyes to find those of his colleagues gathered in that high-tech exam room that day in 2018.
I know it’s temporary, the gaze of the neurosurgeon also seemed to say. But it worked.
Today is World Alzheimer’s Day, the day all about fighting the dreaded brain disease that robs people first of their memories, then their lives.
Every 66 seconds of every day, someone in the world is diagnosed: Your dad. Your grandma.
Your spouse.
You.
And every day in Morgantown, Rezai, who is executive chair of WVU’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, lines up with his aforementioned colleagues to wage clinical war on Alzheimer’s.
At 1,000 ultrasound-blips at a time.
That’s how many pulses were sent to the hippocampus in the brain of his patient. Rezai led the procedure.
The hippocampus oversees memory function, which, of course, is attacked by the disease, and relentlessly so.
All the while, microbubbles — the carbonation part of the cognitive restoral — were also injected into her bloodstream, so they could make their way to the brain, via the circulatory system.
The inevitable collision resulted in a breach of the blood-brain barrier, which is just that.
It’s a semipermeable membrane, the barrier, protecting the delicate blood vessels therein — by keeping out germs or other toxins.
Unfortunately, the barrier also keeps out the good stuff, such as chemotherapy regimens and medications made specifically to untangle the strands of amyloid and tau proteins that cause Alzheimer’s.
That’s why so many medications fail altogether or only yield diminished returns.
Rezai and his team, though, came up with the pioneering ultrasound-microbubble method that didn’t entail cutting into the skull and leaving a brain exposed.
“At the end of the procedure, the patient gets up off the table,” he said.
The beauty of the above, the neurosurgeon said, is that the structural fidelity of the brain isn’t compromised — as the breach closes up on its own.
She was the first, as said, but she hasn’t been the only.
A handful of others have had the same work-up here, including a 77-year-old man with Alzheimer’s in August who is now receiving monoclonal antibody treatment as part of an FDA trial.
“They’re all pioneers,” Renai said, “and all so very brave.”
Renai, in turn, appreciates being part of a pioneering team here in Morgantown.
“From the world over,” he said.
September is also National Alzheimer’s Month, and the institute has been aglow in purple lights at dusk in solidarity.
Call that an apt metaphor, the institute’s executive chair said.
“The light is always on,” he said. “We’re always here for you.” Visit https://rni.wvumedicine.org/ to learn more.
Learning more, in one-on-one fashion at the institute, if you’re newly diagnosed or someone you love is, is all part of the regimen too, Dr. Marc Haut said.
Haut is a neuropsychologist who works with patients and their caregivers.
While it isn’t always easy, he said, he does tell patients that they can still have a good quality of life by focusing on what hasn’t been taken.
He counsels family members also, with a goal of keeping everyone calm and aware of the intricacies of Alzheimer’s.
Especially, he said, when the patient asks the same question that was voiced, and answered, not 30 seconds before.
It’s a matter of education, he said. Telling people what they’re facing, while giving them hope at the same time.
For him, he’s been in a state of admiration — for those pioneering patients undergoing to the ultrasound treatment.
The aforementioned woman is one of his patients, in fact.
“They’ll say the reason they’re doing it is so they can help their kids and grandchildren, or somebody else’s kids and grandchildren,” he said.
“They’re unselfish. We’re very grateful for them.”
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