New research has found that the inhalation of xenon gas reduced neurodegeneration and improved protection in a preclinical animal model of Alzheimer’s disease. The findings have led to the launch of a new clinical trial that will investigate the gas for its neuroprotective properties.
The recent study found that inhalation of xenon gas supressed neuroinflammation, reduced brain atrophy, and increased protective neuronal states, leading to researchers suggesting the gas has “profound” neuroprotective properties.
Xenon gas is able to pass through the blood-brain barrier directly into the fluid surrounding the brain, the researchers explain. For the study, the mouse model of Alzheimer’s was treated with the gas – typically used as an anaesthetic.
The team found that the gas was able to reduce brain atrophy and neuroinflammation, improved nest-building behaviours, as well as induced and increased a protective microglial response associated with clearing amyloid and improving cognition.
“It is a very novel discovery showing that simply inhaling an inert gas can have such a profound neuroprotective effect,” said senior and co-corresponding author Oleg Butovsky, of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system.
“One of the main limitations in the field of Alzheimer’s disease research and treatment is that it is extremely difficult to design medications that can pass the blood-brain barrier—but Xenon gas does. We look forward to seeing this novel approach tested in humans.”
“It is exciting that in both animal models that model different aspects of Alzheimer’s disease, amyloid pathology in one model and tau pathology in another model, that Xenon had protective effects in both situations,” said senior and co-corresponding author David M. Holtzman, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
The clinical trial is set to take place at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the next few months, and will initially enrol healthy volunteers.
The trial will investigate safety and dosage and the research team have confirmed they will study the mechanisms by which Xenon gas achieves its effects, in addition to its potential for treating other diseases such as multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and eye diseases that involve the loss of neurons.
The team is also devising technologies to help use Xenon gas more efficiently as well as potentially recycle it.
“If the clinical trial goes well, the opportunities for the use of Xenon gas are great,” said co-author Howard Weiner, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at BWH and principal investigator of the upcoming clinical trial.
“It could open the door to new treatments for helping patients with neurologic diseases.”
