SYDNEY, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- An Australian study, which successfully reversed dementia symptoms in mice, will now move to human trials, a research team announced here on Tuesday.
Dementia currently affects 400,000 patients in Australia and 40 million patients worldwide.
Scientists at the Queensland Brain Institute were recently able to fully restore brain function in dementia affected mice, by blasting away "toxic plaque" in the brain using non-invasive treatments and ultrasound.
Professor Jurgen Gotz said the results far exceeded the expectations of the team. The federal government has granted 7.1 million U.S. dollar to the team.
"Cognition was restored, so the mice were perfectly fine afterwards, which was a surprise to us, but obviously was extremely encouraging," Gotz said.
Thanks to the government funding, the method will now be tested on up to 10 patients suffering from early onset dementia.
Gotz said that the earlier the treatment is applied, the better.
"Inevitably there is a point of no return, so we want to treat as early as possible before all the damage has occurred," he said.
