{"id":688,"date":"2025-10-08T16:02:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:02:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/?p=688"},"modified":"2025-10-08T16:07:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T21:07:29","slug":"mit-40hz-for-alzheimers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/?p=688","title":{"rendered":"MIT 40Hz for Alzheimer’s"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Evidence that 40Hz gamma stimulation promotes brain health is expanding<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

David Orenstein\u00a0|\u00a0The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; Publication Date: March 14, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A decade after scientists in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT first began testing whether sensory stimulation of the brain\u2019s 40Hz \u201cgamma\u201d frequency rhythms could treat Alzheimer\u2019s disease in mice, a growing evidence base supporting the idea that it can improve brain health \u2014 in humans as well as animals \u2014 has emerged from the work of labs all over the world. A new open-access\u00a0review article in\u00a0PLOS Biology<\/em>\u00a0describes the state of research so far and presents some of the fundamental and clinical questions at the forefront of the noninvasive gamma stimulation now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs we\u2019ve made all our observations, many other people in the field have published results that are very consistent,\u201d says\u00a0Li-Huei Tsai<\/a>, Picower professor of neuroscience at MIT, director of MIT\u2019s\u00a0Aging Brain Initiative, and senior author of the new review, with postdoc\u00a0Jung Park. \u201cPeople have used many different ways to induce gamma including sensory stimulation, transcranial alternating current stimulation, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, but the key is delivering stimulation at 40 hertz. They all see beneficial effects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade of discovery at MIT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting with a paper in\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0in\u00a02016, a collaboration led by Tsai has produced a series of studies showing that 40Hz stimulation via\u00a0light, sound,\u00a0the two combined, or\u00a0tactile vibration\u00a0reduces hallmarks of Alzheimer\u2019s pathology such as amyloid and tau proteins, prevents neuron death, decreases synapse loss, and sustains memory and cognition in various Alzheimer\u2019s mouse models. The collaboration\u2019s investigations of the underlying mechanisms that produce these benefits have so far identified specific cellular and molecular responses in many brain cell types including neurons, microglia, astrocytes, oligodendrocytes, and the brain\u2019s blood vessels. Last year, for instance, the lab\u00a0reported in\u00a0Nature<\/em>\u00a0that 40Hz audio and visual stimulation induced interneurons in mice to increase release of the peptide VIP, prompting increased clearance of amyloid from brain tissue via the brain\u2019s glymphatic \u201cplumbing\u201d system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, at MIT and at the MIT spinoff company\u00a0Cognito Therapeutics, phase II clinical studies have shown that people with Alzheimer\u2019s exposed to 40Hz light and sound experienced a significant slowing of brain atrophy and improvements on some cognitive measures, compared to untreated controls. Cognito, which has also measured significant preservation of the brain\u2019s \u201cwhite matter\u201d in volunteers, has been conducting a pivotal, nationwide phase III clinical trial of sensory gamma stimulation for more than a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNeuroscientists often lament that it is a great time to have AD [Alzheimer\u2019s disease] if you are a mouse,\u201d Park and Tsai wrote in the review. \u201cOur ultimate goal, therefore, is to translate GENUS discoveries into a safe, accessible, and noninvasive therapy for AD patients.\u201d The MIT team often refers to 40Hz stimulation as \u201cGENUS\u201d for Gamma Entrainment Using Sensory Stimulation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A growing field<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Tsai\u2019s collaboration, which includes MIT colleagues\u00a0Edward Boyden\u00a0and\u00a0Emery N. Brown, has published its results, many other labs have produced studies adding to the evidence that various methods of noninvasive gamma sensory stimulation can combat Alzheimer\u2019s pathology. Among many examples cited in the new review, in 2024 a research team in China independently\u00a0corroborated\u00a0that 40Hz sensory stimulation increases glymphatic fluid flows in mice. In another example, a Harvard Medical School-based team in 2022\u00a0showed\u00a0that 40Hz gamma stimulation using Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation significantly reduced the burden of tau in three out of four human volunteers. And in\u00a0another study\u00a0involving more than 100 people, researchers in Scotland in 2023 used audio and visual gamma stimulation (at 37.5Hz) to improve memory recall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Open questions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amid the growing number of publications describing preclinical studies with mice and clinical trials with people, open questions remain, Tsai and Park acknowledge. The MIT team and others are still exploring the cellular and molecular mechanisms that underlie GENUS\u2019s effects. Tsai says her lab is looking at other neuropeptide and neuromodulatory systems to better understand the cascade of events linking sensory stimulation to the observed cellular responses. Meanwhile, the nature of how some cells, such as microglia, respond to gamma stimulation and how that affects pathology remains unclear, Tsai adds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even with a national phase III clinical trial underway, it is still important to investigate these fundamental mechanisms, Tsai says, because new insights into how noninvasive gamma stimulation affects the brain could improve and expand its therapeutic potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe more we understand the mechanisms, the more we will have good ideas about how to further optimize the treatment,\u201d Tsai says. \u201cAnd the more we understand its action and the circuits it affects, the more we will know beyond Alzheimer\u2019s disease what other neurological disorders will benefit from this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the review points to studies at MIT and other institutions providing at least some evidence that GENUS might be able to help with Parkinson\u2019s disease, stroke, anxiety, epilepsy, and the cognitive side effects of\u00a0chemotherapy\u00a0and conditions that reduce\u00a0myelin, such as multiple sclerosis. Tsai\u2019s lab has been studying whether it can help with Down syndrome as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evidence that 40Hz gamma stimulation promotes brain health is expanding David Orenstein\u00a0|\u00a0The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory; Publication Date: March 14, 2025 A decade after scientists in The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT first began testing whether sensory stimulation of the brain\u2019s 40Hz \u201cgamma\u201d frequency rhythms could treat Alzheimer\u2019s disease in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":694,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.culturelife.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}