Does listening to a 40 Hz tone “clean up” the brain in Alzheimer’s patients?

https://blog.szynalski.com/2018/03/40-hz-tone-alzheimers/

March 2nd, 2018 · 100 Comments · Health  

In 2012, I made a Web-based tone generator with the goal of helping tinnitus patients determine the frequency of their tinnitus to better target therapy. Since then, I have heard from people using my generator to teach physics, practice violin, drive away carpenter bees, tune DIY speakers, analyze room acoustics, calibrate vintage synthesizers, cause mischief in class with frequencies the teacher can’t hear, and even open a portal to Sedona, AZ. Far be it from me to take away from all these worthwhile applications, but last week, I got a message from Dennis Tuffin (of Devon, England), describing a new use for my generator which may very well trump everything else:

For the past 7 weeks I have been using your tone-generator for a purpose I wouldn’t think you had envisaged but about which I am sure you will be interested.

I have been following up on some research which my daughters had done about the treatment of Alzheimers by using a 40Hz flickering light source or alternatively a 40Hz sound source. There is sparse info on the net about these experiments though there is a recent piece about it. [here Dennis is referring to this paywalled article]

 

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HEALTH

The sound of healing: Study says sound-stimulation could help Alzheimer's patients

CTVNews.ca Staff Published Wednesday, April 20, 2016 10:01PM EDT Last Updated Thursday, April 21, 2016 9:22AM EDT

 

 

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A new therapy could be music to the ears of hundreds of thousands of Canadians suffering from Alzheimer's disease.

A recent study found that sitting down patients in a chair with built-in speakers and subjecting them to sound stimulation at 40 hertz had "promising" results in terms of increasing their cognition, clarity and alertness.

The research, which was undertaken by researchers from the University of Toronto, Wilfrid Laurier University and the Baycrest Centre hospital in Toronto, studied the effects on 18 participants with different stages of the disease (six mild, six moderate and six severe) after six sessions of treatment.

Related Links

• The Sounds of Science: Music, Technology, Medicine event

 

They also received a second round of treatment through visual stimulation on DVDs, also across six sessions.

Researchers then tested the participants on their mental, emotional and behavioural states.

They found that the 40 Hz stimulation had the strongest impact on patients with mild or moderate Alzheimer's disease.

While the study's sample size is small, Lee Bartel, one of the authors of the study says the findings are encouraging.

"I was absolutely delighted and elated because … you go from theory, and this study had not been done before," said Bartel, associate director of the Music and Health Research Collaboratory at the University of Toronto.

Bartel said the study saw some of the participants with mild Alzheimer's return to being "normal again," and those in moderate condition see their symptoms be downgraded to mild.

"They became more engaged with their present space and the people around them," said Bartel.

"They seemed to be more alert and more interested in life and the goings on, and, in fact there was evidence of some memory from two or three days before ," he added.

Amy Clements-Cortes, another one of the authors and senior music therapist at Baycrest, was also hopeful about the study's findings.

"(There was) increased clarity and cognition, as well as increased alertness to the surroundings, and we also saw that it prompted spontaneous discussion, storytelling and reminiscence," said Clements-Cortes.

Bartel said he came up with the premise of the study after seeing research from the 1990s that Alzheimer sufferers have a lower frequency pattern at which neurons interact in the central nervous system. In healthy people, the pattern, or gamma frequency, generally hovers around 40 Hz.

Bartel compared it to the need for wireless telephones to function at the same frequency in order to communicate.

"Parts of the brain appear to need to be at the same communication frequency, and that frequency is about 40 Hz," said Bartel.

"So when you have a deterioration of that -- when you have too little of it -- the two parts of the brain that want to talk to each other, like the thalamus and the hippocampus, the short-term memory to the long-term memory, they can't talk to each other, they won't communicate, so you won't have a long-term memory."

Bartel said the sound-stimulation treatment at 40 Hz leads to an "increased" frequency, which allows "parts of the brain to talk to each other again."

"So in a sense it is like sitting on the subwoofer of your sound system," explained Bartel.

"So you are getting both the sound and the feeling of the vibration, which in turn is communicated through the cells of the body."

Bartel said the body's cells proceed to relay the frequency to the sensory-motor and auditory cortices to "reregulate" the brain.

 

Note: Dr.Bartel is on the Sound Oasis Experts board and gets royalties from music sales. He is mentioning that companies such the one he is part of, sell Vibrouacoustic chair inserts for less that 10,000. He definitely has a financial interest.

Despite the treatment being relatively non-invasive, there are some risks, according to the authors.

Bartel said the magnets in the chair's built-in speakers could pose problems for people with pacemakers. The vibrations could also be dangerous for people with blood clots or strokes. The authors also don't recommend the treatment for pregnant women.

"There are very minimal risks -- it is only sound," said Bartel.

While Bartel admits the treatment is likely not the "cure for Alzheimer's," he and Clements-Cortes said it could be a "relatively inexpensive" way for people to treat themselves at home.

Bartel said the chair they used at Baycrest cost $10,000, but there are devices on the market or new ones that are "much less expensive." ( Bartel gets music royalties from

"What we have is potentially a means where a person at home can use a vibratory-therapy device and with the right soundtrack -- that we can find a way to make -- people could treat themselves, and perhaps it could delay the speed of development, or it could, even in some cases, offer a reversal of a mild sort," said Bartel.

"In the broader scale, even if we could halt the rapidity or the decline that would already be a great achievement, and I think that is completely realistic."

Bartel hopes the study's results spur more research in the area.

The University of Toronto is also hosting a showcase for the study, and other breakthroughs that combine music and science, at an event on May 3.

With a report from CTV's medical specialist Avis Favaro and producer Elizabeth St. Philip

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https://www.cognitotx.com/#science

 

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4493659/#R6

 

Stimulation by Light and Sound: Therapeutics Effects in Humans. Systematic Review

CONCLUSION

In the analysis of scientific papers that composed the universe of the study, we can conclude that brain stimulation through photic and auditory stimuli seems to be a noninvasive method to induce specific mental states. In all reviewed studies, the individuals who have passed by brain stimulation associated or not with other strategies they obtained gains when compared to control groups.

These considerations suggest the hypothesis that the technique of brain stimulation can be applied to induce favorable mental states to maximize interventions on several disorders that affect humans in a safe and noninvasive method.

That is why it seems plausible to suggest that new clinical investigations about photic and auditory stimulation should be developed and that other positive results can possibly arise through the association of photic and auditory stimulation with treatments for mental disorders.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Declared none.

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CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors confirm that this article content has no conflict of interest.

 

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Short-Term Effects of Rhythmic Sensory Stimulation in Alzheimer’s Disease: An Exploratory Pilot Study

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Clements-Cortes, Amya; b; c; d; * | Ahonen, Heidib | Evans, Michaelc | Freedman, Morrisd | Bartel, Leea

Affiliations: [a] Music and Health Research Collaboratory, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada | [b] Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada | [c] University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada | [d] Baycrest Centre, Morris Freedman, MD, Toronto, ON, Canada

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Amy Clements-Cortes, PhD, 56 Destino Crescent, Woodbridge, Ontario, L4H 3E1, Canada. Tel.: +1 905 417 4486; E-mail: a.clements.cortes@utoronto.ca.

Abstract: This study assessed the effect of stimulating the somatosensory system of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients at three stages of their illness with 40 Hz sound. In this AB cross-over study design, 18 participants (6 mild, 6 moderate, 6 severe) each participated in 13 sessions: one intake and 12 treatment. Treatment A consisted of 40 Hz sound stimulation and Treatment B consisted of visual stimulation using DVDs, each provided twice a week over 6 weeks for a total of 6 times per treatment. Outcome measures included: St. Louis University Mental Status Test (SLUMS), Observed Emotion Rating Scale, and behavioral observation by the researcher. Data were submitted to regression analysis for the series of 6 SLUMS scores in treatment A and 6 scores in B with comparison by group. The slopes for the full sample and subgroups in the 40 Hz treatment were all significant beyond alpha = 0.05, while those for the DVD were not. A thematic analysis of qualitative observations supported the statistical findings. 40 Hz treatment appeared to have the strongest impact on persons with mild and moderate AD. Results are promising in terms of a potential new treatment for persons with AD, and further research is needed.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease, auditory stimulation, cognition, vibration

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-160081

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 651-660, 2016

Accepted 9 February 2016

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Published: 10 May 2016

 

 

 

 

 

 1. Waking up the brain with sound

 

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/320-wake-up-the-brain-with-sound-and-more-1.3568478/waking-up-the-brain-with-sound-1.3568487

 

 

 CBC Radio · Posted: May 13, 2016 1:53 PM ET | Last Updated: June 3, 2016

 

Listen13:30

Music brings us pleasure, it can be a portal to deep emotion or spiritual experience. But can it be a technology for healing? Recently, the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto held an event called Sounds of science: Music, technology, medicine.

The event highlighted some of the projects by the Music and Health Research Collaboratory, looking at how music and sound can be used in rehabilitation, and to treat even serious neurological disorders such as Alzheimers and Parkinsons.

 

- Lee  Bartel

Lee Bartel is a professor in the music faculty. One of the most exciting areas of research is the potential in using low frequency vibrations (40 hertz) to treat Alzheimer's. That gamma range frequency is the same frequency that's involved in what's called intra-brain communication.

Dr. Lee Bartel explains how sound can be used to treat a range of health problems such as Alzheimer's. (Jeremy Sale) "So for one part of the brain to communicate with another part of the brain, like the short term memory to the long term memory, that happens probably at 40 hertz," Bartel explains. "People with Alzheimer's have decreased power in the 40 hertz area". This likely means there is less "writing to long term memory," he says.

The chair used to deliver 40 hz vibrations to people with Alzheimer's via subwoofers.  (Nextwave chair)
In research, they have experimented with having Alzheimer's patients sit in a special chair equipped with subwoofers. It's early days, but the results have been promising. After 6 sessions of 30 minutes "we saw people on average gain 12 per cent on the total Alzheimer's test," Bartel says "that's enough to move them from a medium level of Alzheimer's to mild, or from mild back to normal." 

The use of this kind of vibro-acoustic therapy isn't new, but the connection to brain wave activity is. While the research is still ongoing, the assumption is that the therapy would need to be ongoing.

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 The approach merits further study, said Urs Ribary, a neuroscientist who worked with Rodolfo Llinas at New York University Medical Center on the original research showing the importance of a 40-hertz oscillation in a healthy brain.

article 2

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The treatment, called rhythmis sensory stimulation, completed at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto, aims to use external sound frequencies to boost declining brain activity in Alzheimer’s patients.

Thinkstock/Thinkstock

Adriana BartonHealth Reporter

Published April 27, 2016 Updated April 27, 2016

Published April 27, 2016

This article was published more than 4 years ago. Some information in it may no longer be current.

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A small group of Alzheimer's patients showed temporary improvements in thinking skills and memory after sitting in a medical-grade chair that pulsated with low-frequency sound vibrations, Toronto researchers have found.

The idea behind the experimental treatment, called rhythmic sensory stimulation, is to boost declining brain activity. Studies dating to the 1990s have shown that an internal brain rhythm of 40 hertz is a fundamental frequency in a healthy brain. Alzheimer's patients have lower levels of this "gamma wave" activity compared to healthy people of the same age. But the jury is still out on whether stimulating the brain with external sound frequencies – or deep brain stimulation, a neurosurgery technique – can restore mental function in Alzheimer's patients.

In the pilot study, 18 patients with mild to severe Alzheimer's disease sat for 30-minute sessions in a $10,000 chair at Baycrest Health Sciences in Toronto. Six speakers in the chair pulsed at 40 hertz, a frequency similar to the low E on a piano. Patients not only heard the low rumbling sounds but also felt the vibrations through their bodies said the study's co-author, Lee Bartel, associate director of the University of Toronto's Music and Health Research Collaboratory.

For patients, "it's like sitting on a subwoofer," he said.

Bartel and colleagues are the first to study rhythmic sensory stimulation in Alzheimer's disease. After six sessions, held twice a week, patients scored on average nearly four points higher on a 30-point scale used to screen for cognitive deficits, according to the study, published online in March in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Patients with late-stage Alzheimer's showed minimal improvement, while test score gains among other patients faded within a week of their last session. For patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's, however, a temporary gain of nearly four points on the scale might mean they could "more easily remember their grandchildren's names, or the three things they were going to buy at the store," Bartel said.

But Colin Dormuth, an assistant professor of anesthesiology, pharmacology and therapeutics at the University of British Columbia, questioned the findings, noting that the cognitive scale used in the pilot study is "not the most common test of Alzheimer's." Dormuth, who researches drug therapies for Alzheimer's disease, added that the study authors did not include details on important variables that might influence how patients scored on the test.

The researchers defended their modelling methods and acknowledged the difficulty in analysing results in a small patient group. However, patients in the study were not evaluated based on test scores alone. Research assistants reported that patients appeared more alert and engaged in meaningful conversation during rhythmic sensory stimulation, compared to their behaviour during the test period using visual stimulation as a comparison. (Patients sat in the same vibro-acoustic chair with the power switched off and watched 30-minute sessions of televised ocean waves and nature scenes.)

Ideally, Bartel said, patients would receive rhythmic sensory stimulation three times a week for at least six months to determine its short and long-term effects. In the meantime, it would be premature to conclude this therapy is a treatment for Alzheimer's disease. "This is not a cure," Bartel said. "There's a lot more research that needs to be done."

Rhythmic sensory stimulation is not the same as music therapy, known to rekindle memories and improve mood in Alzheimer's patients. The medical-grade chair uses electronically created sine waves that are consistently at 40 hertz. Listening to music would not give the same effect, since most pop and classical music does not dip to the 40-hertz frequency for extended periods, Bartel said.

In the pilot study, researchers hypothesized that sound vibrations could stimulate brainwaves to synchronize with the 40-hertz pulses and thereby improve cognition.

Preliminary research suggests the brain can synchronize with external vibrations. In a 2013 study at Baycrest, Bernard Ross found that vibrations delivered through the index finger could stimulate a steady 40-hertz oscillation in the brain, based on results from magnetoencephalography (MEG), a technique that measures brain activity.

The approach merits further study, said Urs Ribary, a neuroscientist who worked with Rodolfo Llinas at New York University Medical Center on the original research showing the importance of a 40-hertz oscillation in a healthy brain.

Even in an Alzheimer's brain, where nerve cells are dying, "the brain is still plastic enough that you can have a positive effect," said Ribary, who now holds the British Columbia Leadership Chair in Cognitive Neuroscience at Simon Fraser University.

Nevertheless, Ribary cautioned against putting too much stock in the results of a pilot study. Validating rhythmic sensory stimulation as a therapy for Alzheimer's would require additional studies involving at least a hundred patients in multiple research centres, he said. Future studies should include a more precise evaluation of cognitive changes using brain-imaging technologies. Researchers should test low frequency sounds in combination with other forms of cognitive stimuli, he said, noting the complex audiovisual training programs he has developed to treat dyslexia.

Even if rhythmic sensory stimulation proves to benefit Alzheimer's patients, Ribary said, "it will not fix an Alzheimer's brain. It will just kind of delay [disease progression] or help preserve what you have."

Potential side effects of rhythmic sensory stimulation include feelings of light-headedness or dizziness during the low-frequency sound vibrations. The therapy is non-invasive compared with deep brain stimulation, a surgical technique in which thin electrode wires are inserted into specific brain regions. Andres Lozano, a University of Toronto professor of surgery and Canada Research Chair in Neuroscience, developed this method as a treatment for Parkinson's disease. He is part-way through a series of multi-centre trials using deep brain stimulation in patients with mild Alzheimer's.

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Article 3

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6130417/

The 2016 study of Clements-Cortes et al. investigated the use of somatosensory stimuli, at 40 Hz, directly applied to patients of AD [93]. The stimulus was applied using rhythmic sensory stimulation (RSS) which acts by deeply stimulating mechanoreceptors. Specifically, the device used was the NextWave chair [96], which produced sinusoidal 40 Hz sound waves through 6 speakers that resulted in vibrotactile stimulation of the whole body of patients. The study consisted of 18 patients all with diagnosed AD (6 mild, 6 moderate, and 6 severe). These patients underwent 6 sessions of RSS therapy, each session lasting 30 minutes. The amplitude, direction of movement, and pressure of the sound waves varied both throughout the session and at the different speaker locations. The frequency was nominally 40 Hz but varied from 39.96 Hz to 40.06 Hz in order to avoid the mechanoreceptors becoming habituated and unresponsive. The patients also had 6 sessions of visual stimulus treatment, while sitting with the chair turned off, of DVDs of relaxing scenes produced for AD patients [93]. Sessions were given twice weekly for six weeks with a wash-out time of at least 2 days before crossover from one type of treatment to the next. The efficacy of both modalities of treatment was assessed using standardized scoring systems such as the Saint Louis University Mental Status (SLUMS) [97]. The study found that there was a statistically significant difference in the effect of the two modalities with the RSS treatment giving on average an improvement of 0.5 units in SLUMS score per session, while the visual treatment had no effect on the SLUMS score of the patients. It was suggested in [93] that these results implied that 40 Hz stimulation could lead to increased cognition, with largest impact found in the mild to moderate AD cohort. This study uniquely provided a behavioral endpoint, that of the SLUMS scoring system. Neural gamma activity at 40 Hz was not measured in patients in [93]. Although this was not the focus of the study, it would be interesting to determine if such a measure, by EEG or other means, would give an indication as to whether improved cognition was associated with a change in 40 Hz activity and if so where in the brain this change was happening. Furthermore, it would have been of interest to assess if prolonged, or more frequent, treatment would have resulted in an increase of sufficient magnitude in the SLUMS score of patients to re-classify them as normal. However, the results of the study were encouraging and provide solid evidence for the efficacy of 40 Hz stimulation treatment in AD patients.

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GAMMA BAND NEURAL STIMULATION: A NEW PREVENTATIVE AND THERAPEUTIC HOPE

A novel, non-pharmacological approach to AD and other neurological pathologies involves manipulating gamma activity in the brain. Gamma electrical activity refers to electroencephalogram (EEG) oscillations at a frequency of approximately 30–100 Hz in localized central neural pathways. This electrical activity has been related to many sensory and cognitive functions [18]. Gamma electrical oscillations are one group of oscillation patterns seen on EEG, with the others (delta, theta, alpha, and beta) being of lower frequency activity [35]. These are illustrated in the sketch in Fig. 2.

Fig.2

EEG neural oscillatory patterns. These patterns may be divided into groups based on frequency range, with gamma activity being the highest frequency grouping. The frequencies ranges listed are approximate [18, 35].

The power of gamma activity is increased during the processing of sensory information and in cognitive tasks that involve memory [36]. Further, the increase in gamma activity seen in these tasks is also associated with decreases in the power of the other, lower frequency patterns (delta, theta, alpha, and beta) [36]. Finally, AD patients may feature a reduction in the power of gamma activity [36, 37]. Therefore, modifying gamma activity for patients with AD may support improved cognitive function.

Boosting the LTP-like plasticity effect of intermittent theta-burst stimulation using gamma transcranial alternating current stimulation.

Brain Stimul. 2018 Jul – Aug;11(4):734-742

Authors: Guerra A, Suppa A, Bologna M, D’Onofrio V, Bianchini E, Brown P, Di Lazzaro V, Berardelli A

Abstract
BACKGROUND: Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation (tACS) consists in delivering electric current to the brain using an oscillatory pattern that may entrain the rhythmic activity of cortical neurons.

 When delivered at gamma frequency, tACS modulates motor performance and GABA-A-ergic interneuron activity.
OBJECTIVE: Since interneuronal discharges play a crucial role in brain plasticity phenomena, here we co-stimulated the primary motor cortex (M1) in healthy subjects by means of tACS during intermittent theta-burst stimulation (iTBS), a transcranial magnetic stimulation paradigm known to induce long-term potentiation (LTP)-like plasticity.

 METHODS: We measured and compared motor evoked potentials before and after gamma, beta and sham tACS-iTBS. While we delivered gamma-tACS, we also measured short-interval intracortical inhibition (SICI) to detect any changes in GABA-A-ergic neurotransmission.

 
RESULTS: Gamma, but not beta and sham tACS, significantly boosted and prolonged the iTBS-induced after-effects.  

 Interestingly, the extent of the gamma tACS-iTBS after-effects correlated directly with SICI changes.

 
CONCLUSIONS: Overall, our findings point to a link between gamma oscillations, interneuronal GABA-A-ergic activity and LTP-like plasticity in the human M1.

 Gamma tACS-iTBS co-stimulation might represent a new strategy to enhance and prolong responses to plasticity-inducing protocols, thereby lending itself to future applications in the neurorehabilitation setting.

PMID: 29615367 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE]

I have read that:

fractures that wont heal (delayed union) start healing when ultrasound energy is focused on the wound.

In fact, even subtle physical vibration of the tissue in the area of the injury, increases the rate of healing.

Phsyically vibrating the head wouldnt work well, so applying other energies that are more subtle have had some amazing effects, in early studies.

Its all part of the idea that something other than drugs can make changes to the nature of cells in the human body. Including the brain. We see because light energy excites the photoreceptors in our eyes. If we can get energy to the cells, the microglia, ... why wouldnèt it excite those cells the same way. Energy is transferred from light, heat, sound, ultrasound, InfraRED light......

Near Infra Red Light Therapy is being tested for macular degeneration.

Vibrouacoustics already has a bit of a foothold in the treatment of  symptoms of Parkinsons disease. If just jiggling cells , physically, is helpful, imagine what getting extra light or heat energy to the actual cells that need help, could do.