MIT sensory stimulation shows progress in treating Alzheimer's

A 40-hertz sensory stimulation could be a remedy in treating Alzheimer’s disease, according to two early-stage clinical studies produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Research found that light and sound at a brain rhythm frequency of 40-hertz yielded neurological and behavioral advantages for participants.

The study tested the safety and effectiveness of sensory stimulation as a non-invasive medicine for Alzheimer’s. It was spearheaded by Dr. Diane Chan, a neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and postdoc in the laboratory of Li-Huei Tsai.  

Tsai is a Picower Professor in the The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT.

“In these clinical studies, we were pleased to see that volunteers did not experience any safety issues and used our experimental light and sound devices in their homes consistently,” Tsai said. 

Findings showed that proposed treatment produced no serious adverse effect, was well-tolerated, and was accompanied with distinctive advantages in a small cluster of participants. 

Although cautioning that the results are not yet sufficient evidence of efficacy, researchers believe the study “clearly supports proceeding with more extensive study of [40-hertz] sensory stimulation as a potential noninvasive therapeutic for Alzheimer’s disease.”

Three studies that took place between 2016-2019 found that mice with Alzheimer’s showed learning and memory improvements and diminished levels of  Alzheimer’s proteins when subjected to light flickering or sound clicking at 40 hertz.

“After such a short time we didn’t expect to see significant effects on cognitive measures," Chan said. "It was encouraging to see that, at least on face-name association, the treatment group did perform significantly better.” 

Due to these findings, Chan backed the clinical trials at MIT with phase one involving 43 participants, which included 16 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s to test the 40-hertz hypothesis. Phase two involved 15 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease in a controlled study, who received exposure to 40-hertz light and sound for an hour daily for three months.

Neither cluster of participants reported any serious adverse effects. Treated patients showed enhanced brain activity along medial visual networks that are crucial to cognition and visual processing.

A clinical study to examine the therapeutic potential of 40-hertz stimulation for Parkinson’s disease and Down syndrome patients is currently in the works for the MIT team.