This Anesthetic Gas Could Be the Next Big Alzheimer’s Treatment

The next Alzheimer’s cure may come from an unexpected place. In a new study published this week, scientists found evidence in mice that xenon gas could help treat the neurodegenerative condition.

Scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the University of Washington led the study. has been published on Wednesday Science Translational Medicine. Xenon gas has been shown to reduce inflammation and brain shrinkage in Alzheimer’s-like mice. Researchers are now beginning preliminary human trials to further test the therapy’s potential.

Xenon gas is already used in medicine as an anesthetic and medical imaging agent. Studies have also suggested that xenon may help protect the brainand some studies have tested its use as a treatment for depression and other brain-related disorders (unfortunately, depression research mixed bag so far). Because xenon can easily cross the blood-brain barrier—the shield that protects the brain from infections but also prevents most drugs from reaching it—scientists wondered if xenon could also protect the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.

The researchers tested inhaled xenon on two types of mice designed to develop the brain destruction seen in Alzheimer’s. In these mice, the gas appeared to activate a protective response from the brain’s unique immune cells called microglia, which in turn helped protect their brains from the harmful changes associated with Alzheimer’s disease. For example, the mice had reduced levels of brain inflammation and atrophy. The researchers also noted promising signs of a decrease in amyloid plaque, one of the biomarkers strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease progression.

“This is a very new discovery that simply inhaling an inert gas can have such a profound neuroprotective effect,” said lead researcher Oleg Butovsky, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. statement From Mass. General Brigham. “One of the major limitations in research and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease is that it is extremely difficult to develop drugs that can cross the blood-brain barrier, but xenon gas does.”

Although these findings are based only on mice, they compel the researchers to go one step further. The team is preparing to launch Phase I trial will test the safety and immune effects of xenon gas on healthy human subjects in the next few months. Looking ahead, this discovery could open new opportunities to exploit xenon’s potential for brain healing.

“If the clinical trial goes well, the potential for using xenon gas is huge,” said Howard Weiner, co-author of the Brigham and Women’s Ann Romney Center for Neurological Diseases and lead researcher on the new trial. statement. “This could open the door to new treatments to help patients with neurological diseases.”

Although there have been some important advances in the treatment of Alzheimer’s over the years, today’s best drugs still have only modest effects in slowing the progression of the disease. Thus, new treatments that can attack Alzheimer’s disease from a different angle would be greatly welcomed. There are currently about 7 million Americans he thought Living with Alzheimer’s – a number that could almost double by 2050.