Alzheimer's & TEMT: New Brain-Hacking Gadget May Help

alzheimers temt cap silhouette of man at dusk stars

Alzheimers Vs. TEMT Electromagnetic Brain-Cap. Another Win?:

The History of Science is full of strange gadgets right back to our earliest days.

We’ve always tried to solve problems or improve some capability with wacky devices.

Whether it’s the surprisingly-advanced tools the Egyptians used to perform surgery,

All the way to Doc Brown’s electrical mind-reading headset from “Back To The Future”

But now, Science is getting a lot more serious about doing good with electricity and magnetism.

And a recent device in that long-parade might be another step in the direction of fixing a serious health problem; possibly without drugs…

Back To The Future!:

If you watch any Sci-Fi movie, you’ll often see the future depicted as more-driven by electricity and technology.

And although guys like Jules Verne were working mostly with steam 100+ years ago,

They were still trying to envision a world where Technology could refine everything we do and fix every problem we have.

Companies like Intuitive Surgical are also quickly bringing that I-Robot style future right into the present.

And the short answer is that the latest startup gadget for the brain is the MemorEm cap by the NeuroEM company.

It uses both computer-controlled electrical current and also electro-magnetic fields to treat Alzheimer’s Disease, and the initial results are cautiously-promising.

Read on to find out more details…

Tough Problems to Tackle

So Alzheimer’s presents a really big problem.

We live in our heads, and what are we other than our character, our memories, and the very structure of our brains?

Sadly, most of the newer type of drugs tested for the disease are just not working.

They’ve all failed FDA trials, and the newest one by Amgen probably will, too.

So an enterprising inventor took a look at that landscape, and also at the history of health improvement gadgetry,

And he probably thought, “Well if a Drug won’t work right now… Maybe a Gadget will?”

At this point, any help or progress at-all would be welcome to the roughly 6 Million-and-counting people suffering from this soul-stealing disease.

Grassroots Self-Improvers Lead The Way:

Luckily, there has been a recent brain-hacker’s trend of applying electrical current across the skull in controlled ways,

That is supposed to have one effect or another a bit like the junior-woodchuck version of Dr. Frankenstein-meets-MRI.

The TMS or TCMS (Trans-Cranial Magnetic Stimulation) crowd is usually doing it to improve memory, cognitive performance, or mood.

It’s done with two or more contacts on the scalp and a controller-box that modulates current, frequency, and a few other factors to create the desired-effect.

And little-by-little small results are starting to trickle in.

So much so that companies like Thync are using app-programming and the processing-power of smartphones to create a TMS relaxation device that works even more precisely than the DIY boxes.

This refinement is very important, because as anyone who’s used an EMS unit to help fix muscles after an injury or sprain knows,

Individual-settings may be different from person-to-person.

But Wait, It Gets Better. The Magnetic-Attraction Of Results:

Another refinement that makes the NeuroEM unit better is Magnetism.

Which is great, because another company discovered this too.

In that case it was the odd coincidence of several bipolar patients coming out of an MRI feeling better and less-depressed after every scan.

-Which led to a device about the size of an iron or large muscle massager, that relieves depression symptoms very quickly by using magnetic-fields.

TEMT Vs. Alzheimer’s Another Brain-Zapper With Promise!:

Then it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that in the very small study conducted at the Alzheimer’s arm of USF,

More than 80% of subjects reported having better memory with zero side-effects after using the NeuroEM electromagnetic cap and controller box.

They received 2 one-hour treatments per day, for a total of 120, over the course of a six month study.

And these were all people 63 years-old and above who were already experiencing mild to moderate Alzheimer’s symptoms.

But instead of getting-worse over that six-month period, they all improved by 200% the amount they were expected to decline on cognitive-tests in the same period.

Get The Gunk Out!:

All of the 7 subject with positive-results agreed to keep going on the program for another 4-month study follow-up.

Furthermore, in lab tests of their blood and cerebro-spinal-fluid, the results showed that the 2 main markers for Alzheimer’s were being positively-affected without hurting their brains.

Somehow, just like the strange effects of the MRI that led to the depression-fixing device,

The electro-magnetic action of the NeuroEm unit seem to be making positive changes in the brain.

In addition to what appears to be disruption of the 2 chief agents of AD,

The MRIs from USF-Byrd showed that there was also increased activity in a brain region normally depressed by the disease.

So that in-itself is both unexpected and extremely-encouraging.

Other Devices Have Paved The Way, Too:

To add more fuel to the fire, researchers at Boston University also showed that they can exercise the brain’s memory-center,

-Even by targeting a region that’s a little easier to access.

Yet another device uses a technique anyone who’s been to physical therapy would recognize.

Ultrasound!

And like NeuroEM’s box & cap, it seems to agitate the Alzheimer’s gunk right out of people’s brains,

With even more impressive results for clear disruption of it, as shown by the sheer-amount found in tests.

It works in a similar, but slightly-different way, by using micro-bubbles to flush the brain’s cleaning system,

And help the body do what it used to be better-at when younger, clean out the brain.

The Little Bit We Know So-Far:

Now as far as what a person can do to prevent AD now,

So far the best ideas are:
1) Cardiovascular Exercise
2) Reducing Saturated Fat In Your Diet
3) Increasing Anthocyanins In Your Diet

There are a few other discoveries based on old anti-inflammatory drugs,

And these are very encouraging, too.

Especially because right-now, they work even better than the new drugs under development as stated before.

BUT! any time someone starts taking a drug for something, things get more serious and doctors must really be consulted,

Even if it’s just for early-prevention.

Because the possibility of Overdose, Side-Effects, and Dangerous-Interactions are always very real spectres that will always linger.

Small But Powerful:

But either way, USF-Byrd’s admittedly-small work with NeuroEm on their product is not the first study on this angle of attacking the problem.

It’s also not the first to show actual, measurable results; even in hard-evidence like bloodwork and spinal-fluid.

And even-though you might think that if medical science needs a giant donut to scan your whole brain like an MRI,

That similar to the Michael Rohan’s iron-sized LFMS device that relieves Depression,

A version of any TEMT unit will probably have to be bigger and more powerful to achieve more serious results.

It still shows that you may not need a drug to fix a problem,

And that as wacky as they seem from Victorian times until now,

Medical devices like the MemorEM really can have measurable positive effects on serious health problems like Alzheimer’s; here’s to hoping they keep getting better with time.

Photo Credits: “human silhouette”, by Prottoy Hassan