The cure for Alzheimer's continues to be a Holy Grail in medicine. There have been breakthroughs in research giving scientists clues how the disease forms, yet those discoveries are just the tip of an iceberg. Now comes two separate research that has been done recently suggesting that strobe lights and marijuana can possibly cure Alzheimer's.
The research involving strobe lights was led by Li-Huei Tsai, director of the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT. Their study found out that brain waves of genetically engineered mice were stimulated when exposed to flickering lights. These brain waves are called gamma oscillations, which have been observed to be disturbed in Alzheimer's patients.
Gamma oscillations are synchronized brain activities, which are not found in patients with Alzheimer's anymore. These activities are closely linked to memory and attention. However, when these are stimulated by the flickering lights, the immune cells in the brain respond causing them to absorb the sticky amyloid proteins, which are the most common evidence found in Alzheimer's patients.
The researchers said that if humans respond the same way the mice did, then it would be the cheapest and non-invasive cure for Alzheimer's.
In a separate research, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in California found out that Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, an active compound found in marijuana, has the ability to remove clumps of the toxic amyloid plaques found in patients with Alzheimer's.
Although there have been studies in the use of marijuana or cannabis as a possible cancer cure, it is the first time scientists are looking into it as a cure for Alzheimer's.
Aside from removing amyloid plaque, scientists said that their studies have shown that marijuana also reduces the inflammation in the brain. This busts all previous theories that the inflammation is the root cause of the plaque build-up. The research shows that it's the other way around. The research also shows that there could be a substance that can eliminate both the plaque build-up and the elimination, and THC could be that silver bullet.
The researchers, however, need to test this further since they haven't used the method on either mice and humans but only with neurons in the laboratory. They are hoping that the next step will be live clinical trials to further their research.
