• Wheaties [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    oh shit, i thought this was an EEG machine dressed up to defraud investors. If they’re using ultrasound, this is considerably more concerning. This won’t achieve its goal, which is some pie-in-the-sky nonsense. What it will do is poison the well for research into what could be one of the biggest medical breakthroughs of this century…

    …cus, as best I understand it, the ultrasound stimulation actually does affect cognition.

    Quick rewind; For the longest time, nobody knew how anesthetics worked. They just did. And they work on everything – mammals, reptiles, fish, plants, single celled organisms. At a safe dose, it’s a temporary universal off switch for living organisms. It’s only recently that a reach team of anesthesiologists found out just what anesthetics affect. Inside every cell are these structures called microtubules. They are constantly forming from smaller proteins (called tubulin), falling appart, then forming again. It’s like an all-in-one muscular and skeletal system. It gives cells their shape. It’s how cells move. It’s crucial to cell division. And as long as anesthetics are present, microtubuals don’t form.

    The idea behind ultrasound treatment is to do the opposite of anesthetics. To use sound frequencies to stimulate and encourage microtubules to form more. They’re hoping it may be a a treatment for Alzheimers and dementia. And this dumbass startup is trying to monetize it before it’s even gone through preliminary studies.