Autor(es): Monteiro, Francisca ; Oliveira, Sofia ; Catarino, Susana Oliveira ; Sotiropoulos, Ioannis ; Carvalho, Óscar Samuel Novais ; Silva, Filipe S.
Data: 2024
Identificador Persistente: https://hdl.handle.net/1822/92731
Origem: RepositóriUM - Universidade do Minho
Assunto(s): Alzheimer’s disease; N2a cells; neuropathology; transcranial ultrasound stimulation; ultrasonic stimuli
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that represents the most common cause of dementia, but recent efforts to develop effective pharmacological treatments have been disappointing. However, non-drug solutions have been proposed to block disease progression and alleviate clinical symptoms, demonstrating promising results. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation is at the forefront of alternative therapies to treat AD as it has been proved to improve various aspects of neuropathology and symptomatology of AD at both the preclinical and clinical levels. However, there is a huge variety of stimulation protocols, and the optimal parameters are yet to be established. Here, mouse-derived neuroblastoma (N2a) cells expressing the Swedish APP and the human Tau P301L mutations were subjected to different levels of ultrasonic stimuli (distinct central frequencies, power density, pulsing frequencies, treatment duration and periodicity), and their effects on cell viability, morphology and proliferation were assessed. The current experimental, fundamental optimization study will allow future preclinical and clinical studies to potentiate the neuroprotective effects of transcranial ultrasound stimulation, and to establish a consensus regarding the ideal parameters of the ultrasonic stimuli to effectively restore normal neuronal activity and reverse AD neuropathology and symptoms.
