Alzheimer’s patient treated with focused ultrasound

The blood-brain barrier prevents almost all potentially therapeutic drugs from passing into the brain. This has been a major roadblock for clinical neurology, but we may have a solution, perhaps a partial one, in the form of focused ultrasound. The first Alzheimer’s patient has just been treated using ultrasound to open up the blood-brain barrier in his brain. Though no drugs have been administered, the researchers are evaluating the safety and effectiveness of the technique on such patients.