According to studies performed at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU), it is now possible to quickly detect brain blood vessel pathology that may result in some psychiatric and neurological conditions such as stroke, traumatic brain damage and epilepsy and some neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s disease.
This study was carried out by Professor Alon Friedman, MD-PhD and Doctor Dan Milikovsky from the Zlotowski Center for Neuroscience, Department of Physiology and Cell Biology, Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. The result of the study is a method that uses the analysis from the EEG patterns using algorithms.
This study’s diagnostic method was as a result of the findings that were released from the research performed on patients with brain condition (such as Alzheimer’s disease) performed in Prof. Friedman’s lab. The patients display some irregular activities that look like an epileptic seizure, which can be read through EEG recordings. The study was released in the Science Translational Medicine Bulletin. According to recent studies, the seizure-like activity reveals pathological variations in the blood vessels present in the brain and this adds to the
The irregular activity shown by the patients imitates the dysfunction of the brain blood vessels, which contribute, to the pathogenesis of numerous neurodegenerative and other neuropsychiatric disorders.
Professor Friedman said, “Studies from our lab and others, indicates that the pathological variations in the blood vessels in the brain, which are also known as the blood-brain barrier (BBB), add to the development of Alzheimer’s disease and other brain illnesses. Since dysfunction of the BBB is also an important component in the pathogenesis of epilepsy, we postulated that BBB dysfunction in people suffering from Alzheimer’s syndrome would also trigger abnormal activity in the brain that could be detected by EEG, an affordable and accessible tool used in the clinic, and serve as a diagnostic technique for these conditions. We find abnormal, epileptic-like EEG recordings in many patients with Alzheimer’s disease as well as epilepsy, which reflect brain blood vessel pathology and can serve both for diagnosis as well as a therapeutic target.”
We have successfully tested this technology on different animal models and tons of patients and it is now being seen on large databases of EEG records of a lot of patients across the world.
The CEO of BGN Technologies, Josh Peleg said, “This new method for diagnosing neurological disorders is based on the study of variations of blood vessels in the brain and can be valuable for the prompt detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other related neurological disorders, at the stage when we can still slow down disease progression with treatment. The technology offers a biomarker for instant results and allows for the unceasing monitoring of the response to treatment and the progression of the neurological condition. We are now looking for a potential industry partner for the advance development of this great method for a range of applications, from the monitoring of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), to patients after head injuries and stroke and for the diagnosis of vascular pathology in initial Alzheimer’s disease.”
