Jessica F. Jordao1,2, Carlos A. Ayala-Grosso3,4,
Yuexi Huang1, JoAnne McLaurin2, Isabelle Aubert,
2,4, Kullervo Hynynen1,5
1Imaging Research, Sunnybrook Health
Sciences Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; 2Laboratory Medicine &
Pathobiology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada; 3Unidad
de Biologa Molecular, Universidad Central de Venezuela, Los Chaguaramos,
Venezuela; 4Brain Sciences Research, Sunnybrook Health Sciences
Centre, Toronto, ON, Canada; 5Medical Biophysics, University of
Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
The
use of antibodies to target toxic amyloid-beta peptides (Aβ) in the
brain of Alzheimers patients has shown promise in clinical trials but still
faces some difficulties. The
blood-brain barrier remains a major obstacle; preventing intravenously
delivered antibodies from reaching the brain.
In this study, we use transcranial MRI-guided focused ultrasound to
efficiently deliver antibodies to the brain of a mouse model of Alzheimers
disease and evaluate the efficacy of this treatment. We found that delivery of the antibody is
localized to targeted regions and yields a rapid and significant reduction of
Aβ plaque load from a single treatment.