From: 23x11.5c@gmail.com   
      
   Sound Waves Can Heal Brain Disorders   
   Focused ultrasound may help deliver drugs and other treatments   
   Oct 16, 2014 |By Bret Stetka   
      
      
      
      
   The brain is protected by formidable defenses. In addition to the skull, the   
   cells that make up the blood-brain barrier keep pathogens and toxic substances   
   from reaching the central nervous system. The protection is a boon, except   
   when we need to deliver    
   drugs to treat illnesses. Now researchers are testing a way to penetrate these   
   bastions: sound waves.   
      
   Kullervo Hynynen, a medical physicist at Sunnybrook Research Institute in   
   Toronto, and a team of physicians are trying out a technique that involves   
   giving patients a drug followed by an injection of microscopic gas-filled   
   bubbles. Next patients don a    
   cap that directs sound waves to specific brain locations, an approach called   
   high-intensity focused ultrasound. The waves cause the bubbles to vibrate,   
   temporarily forcing apart the cells of the blood-brain barrier and allowing   
   the medication to    
   infiltrate the brain. Hynynen and his colleagues are currently testing whether   
   they can use the method to deliver chemotherapy to patients with brain tumors.   
   They and other groups are planning similar trials for patients with other   
   brain disorders,    
   including Alzheimer's disease.   
      
   Physicians are also considering high-intensity focused ultrasound as an   
   alternative to brain surgery. Patients with movement disorders such as   
   Parkinson's disease and dystonia are increasingly being treated with implanted   
   electrodes, which can interrupt    
   problematic brain activity. A team at the University of Virginia hopes to use   
   focused ultrasound to deliver thermal lesions deep into the brain without   
   having patients go under the knife.   
      
   "Using ultrasound to make lesions in the body is not a new concept; however,   
   it's been limited for the brain because of the contours, density and thickness   
   of the skull," says neurologist and study investigator Binit Shah. The new   
   technique overcomes    
   that hurdle by training more than 1,000 beams onto a target area. Shah and his   
   colleagues' pilot study of patients with essential tremor--a common, usually   
   benign condition of rhythmic shaking--was published in the New England Journal   
   of Medicine last    
   year and found that ultrasonic lesioning of part of the thalamus decreased   
   tremor. The group is expanding the trial and launching other pilot studies to   
   explore several symptoms of Parkinson's.   
      
   The benefits of focused ultrasound might extend well beyond restoring mobility   
   and delivering drugs. Other groups are exploring its use in treating   
   neuropathic pain and obsessive-compulsive disorder, too.   
      
   This article was originally published with the title "The Sound of Healing."   
      
      
   http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sound-waves-can-heal-b   
   ain-disorders/?WT.mc_id=SA_MB_20141119   
      
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