* Hyperbaric oxygen treatment can improve or correct pathology and
behavioral shortcomings associated with Alzheimer's disease
* Added oxygen can stimulate the release of growth factors and stem
cells, which promotes healing
* The treatment has shown a reduction of neuroinflammation and
behavioral deficiencies by forty percent
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy could help alleviate a few symptoms of
patients with Alzheimer's disease. The treatment is also being used
to treat certain neurological disorders. The findings of this study
are further discussed in Neurobiology of Aging journal.
"This revolutionary treatment for Alzheimer's disease uses a
hyperbaric oxygen chamber, which has been shown in the past to be
extremely effective in treating wounds that were slow to heal," says
Prof. Uri Ashery of TAU's Sagol School of Neuroscience and the
Faculty of Life Sciences, who led the research for the study.
‘Patients who undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy for different
conditions breathe in pure oxygen in a pressurized room or chamber.
Under these conditions the added oxygen can stimulate the release of
growth factors and stem cells and thereby promote healing’
"We have now shown for the first time that hyperbaric oxygen therapy
can actually improve the pathology of Alzheimer's disease and
correct behavioral deficits associated with the disease".
"This research is extremely exciting as it explores a new therapy
that holds promise as a treatment for Alzheimer's disease," Prof.
Ashery says.
The research was conducted by Ph.D. student Ronit Shapira of TAU's
Faculty of Life Sciences; Prof. Beka Solomon and Dan Frenkel of
TAU's Sagol School of Neuroscience and Faculty of Life Sciences; and
Prof. Shai Efrati of TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Sagol School
of Neuroscience and Assaf-Harofeh Medical Center. It was published
in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.
Patients who undergo hyperbaric oxygen therapy for different
conditions breathe in pure oxygen in a pressurized room or chamber.
In this chamber, the air pressure is increased to twice that of
normal air. Under these conditions, oxygen solubility in the blood
increases and is transported by blood vessels throughout the body.
The added oxygen stimulates the release of growth factors and stem
cells, which themselves promote healing.
The TAU scientists used a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease and
built a custom-made hyperbaric oxygen chamber suitable for small
animals. Then, over the course of 14 days, the team administered
hyperbaric oxygen treatment to the mice for one hour per day. After
14 days, the mice underwent a series of behavioral tests as well as
tissue biochemical tests to understand how hyperbaric oxygen
treatment affects the pathological hallmarks associated with
Alzheimer's disease.
The treatment reduced behavioral deficiencies compared to the
non-transgenic control mice, reduced plaque pathology by 40%, and
reduced neuroinflammation by about 40%.
"There are serious clinical implications to this research," says
Shapira, principal investigator of the study. "Hyperbaric oxygen
treatment is a well-tolerated and safe therapy used in clinics
around the world for various medical conditions, including
neurological disorders. Although further research is needed to
elucidate the underlying beneficial mechanisms of the therapy and to
evaluate its beneficial effects in various Alzheimer patient
populations, it holds great potential for the treatment of
Alzheimer's disease."
"In this hallmark study, the beneficial physiological effects of
hyperbaric oxygen therapy were directly demonstrated on
Alzheimer-affected brain tissue," says Prof. Efrati. "We assume that
the main challenge in human use will be to initiate the treatment at
early stages before the significant amount of brain tissue is lost."
Source:
The researchers are currently testing the effectiveness of
hyperbaric oxygen treatment on an additional mouse model of
Alzheimer's disease to investigate the mechanisms underlying its
impact on the disease.
