How flashing lights and pink noise might banish Alzheimer’s and improve memory | Hacker News Reader

How flashing lights and pink noise might banish Alzheimer’s and improve memory

nature.com

90 pointsjoeyespo38 comments

Must say the prospects of fixing my grandmother with some flashing lights is appealing. At this point she mostly talks to her doll - as if people around are all strangers.

Don't worry I'm not quite crazy enough to run human trials on unsuspecting relatives. Particularly, not when they are long past the ability to give consent.

But I won't say it's not tempting to buy and EEG and start cooking...

What's the worst that can happen ? what's her quality of life ?

Does she sleep a lot during the day? My father sleeps a lot and doesn't like to talk, but he remembers everything, even drives the car. We still don't know if it's depression or early dementia (could be frontotemporal).

My mother died to Alzheimer's, and my father to a stroke (which induced a dementia). I know how you feel, and empathize.

Radiolab had a fascinating episode about this:

https://www.radiolab.org/story/bringing-gamma-back/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oD3hofS5NM and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oD3hofS5NM for gamma tube

You posted the same link twice

Seems strange it was flashing light compared to mice in a dark box? Maybe visual stimulation of any kind is better than sitting in darkness. I’d imagine more brain activity is probably helpful in preventing dimentia?

Couldn't double the frequency? And get similar waves..

The idea that certain light frequencies can have an effect isn't crazy. I recently bought a cold soar treatment device that used some special light frequency. (Note: I have yet to test it, but it's FDA approved)

Interestingly, Alzheimer’s is more prevalent in areas further from the equator. But, I‘ve seen an interview with a researcher who runs trials with LLLT (near infrared) helmets on Alzheimer‘s patients, and he said that pulsing at 40Hz gives an additional effect. At the time I thought this is BS, but now that frequency is mentioned in Nature..

Could this be related to electronic music shows, especially techno? Flashing lights and regular repetitive beats that act as a base to dance off of.

Might be something in to this. My mind always feels refreshed by a good thunderstorm.

Pink noise is also used to treat tinnitus. People say it sounds like listening to waves at the beach. So perhaps a distant thunderstorm at the beach would be even better.

Does this suggest epilepsy is on the same neural circuit?

Epilepsy is triggered by strobe lights in that frequency range, I think it is a coincidence.

This is a really great writeup of this project, by the way. I've been paying attention and didn't know half of what they had done.

Videogames can trigger epilepsy, so perhaps they can treat/prevent Alzheimer's.

There are a lot of technologies like this that are simply too cheap to be developed. The alternative health world will probably produce an implementation, but mainstream healthcare couldn't care less about something like this.

Sorry but this is complete crap. I'm not sure if you read the article, but it states:

"More than two dozen clinical trials are aiming to modulate brainwaves in some way — some with flickering lights or rhythmic sounds, but most through the direct application of electrical currents to the brain or scalp."

Two dozen clinical trials which will hopefully lead to a breakthrough. This and countless other medical advances have come about through hard science and rigorous testing in the realm of traditional medicine, not "alternative health". Crystals and homeopathic magic water aren't going cure Alzheimer's.

I wish I could set a reminder for 5 years out for this thread. From what I've seen, all the clinical trials in something like this will be abandoned for some reason or another.

I’m personally directly involved in one such trial. I’ll be happy to send you a mail in 5 years (or next year) with updates.

I’m not the parent, but I would be interested!

Drop me an email (check my profile) and then I'll know where to respond :)

If you use an electronic calendar, you can. I set multi year reminders a few times, and it does work. Computer don’t care.

Most calendar systems support import/export in iCal , so you’ll be fine switching in the mean time.

If one of the reasons is, "it doesn't work", I'd call that a success, wouldn't you?

Not everything is a money-driven conspiracy. (Though, not everything isn't, either.)

I don't know if I agree with that.

Doctors recommend low tech health solutions pretty often: humidifiers, electric toothbrushes, Dr. Scholl's foot products, ear cleaning tools, hydrogen peroxide, Epsom salts...

I'm pretty sure I've heard of pediatricians recommending nightlights and soothing sounds for kids. This doesn't seem so different.

Alternative healthcare doesn't exist. If it works, it's just Healthcare....if it doesn't, it gets called "alternative"

Alternative logic.

What do you call healthcare that doesn't work, but is commonly used anyways? For example, Propublica's article says stents usually don't help improve patients' conditions:

https://www.propublica.org/article/when-evidence-says-no-but...

I like the term 'monopoly medicine', but maybe there's a better term.

That would be a misuse of healthcare.

Just because a developer has all of the tools available, doesn't mean they can build a solid working app.

Medicine is an applied science and as with all applied sciences, new knowledge is hard to get into practice among the older crowd.

So, while stent placement in specific cases did not improve the outcomes, getting practitioners comfortable with doing nothing takes time.

I find your comment ironic, considering the basis of the whole articles was very alternative:

"Brainwaves were first noticed by German psychiatrist Hans Berger. In 1929, he published a paper describing the repeating waves of current he observed when he placed electrodes on people’s scalps. It was the world’s first electroencephalogram (EEG) recording — but nobody took much notice. Berger was a controversial figure who had spent much of his career trying to identify the physiological basis of psychic phenomena. It was only after his colleagues began to confirm the results several years later that Berger’s invention was recognized as a window into brain activity."

A recent counterexample in my life: I recently was diagnosed with sleep apnea. It's a mechanical problem where my respiratory tract relaxes in such a way as to close off airflow while I'm sleeping. It's actually a big problem because either it wakes you up or the oxygen levels on your blood drop (or one and then the other.) and those things, aside from making you feel groggy the next day, cause all sorts of long term health issues. Weight gain, too... which is sad because being overweight is a huge contributing factor to apnea. (In fact, I've been working out a lot more since I started treatment. I just feel physically better and more physically able to push myself to work out.)

The treatment my doctor recommended? Rig a glorified air compressor to blow air down my throat.

It's really a beautifully simple and effective solution to what's fundamentally a mechanical problem with my body.

I mean, I wanted something quiet and auto-adjusting with a lot of data logging, so I went out and got one of the more expensive glorified air compressors made by ResMed (which really is near silent- I'm not saying that the top-end ResMed machines are a good value for the dollar compared to the cheaper machines, but they really are quite nice, and totally worth it if your marginal dollars are cheap.) but the mechanism is super simple and I'm pretty sure I could rig one up (minus the auto-adjust) for like $30 of parts; it's just an air compressor lubricated with something that doesn't stink with a regulator. As far as I can tell, if you want a CPAP machine and are paying full freight, you can pay anywhere from $300 to $3000, which seems pretty cheap for the difference it makes.

But, my point is that your doctor will totally prescribe simple mechanical solutions when they work.

Join the club! If you're interested in the data aspect of this, I highly recommend the software package sleepyhead. It let's you see all the data from the machine in a great format. If you're able to convince your insurance to cover, I would also recommend getting a mandibular advancement device. I find that switching between the two every few weeks helps my AHI scores. Probably because each works in a different way and muscle memory seems to come into effect for each differently. The MAD works for me because I have epiglotis-derived SA, so you're milage may differ. I would also highly recommend getting an ENT consult. Knowing why I have SA was great because it helps me position my pillows to get the best results.

This is also a really cool recent advancement but I'm not sold on it yet: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/01/fda-ap...

If you want even more data, I use this: https://www.amazon.com/Contec-Wrist-worn-Oximeter-Software-D... You can overlay the pulse-ox data in sleepyhead with your CPAP data to get a fuller picture.

I've also been looking into making my own EEG hairnet and computer logger but it's not trivial. Good luck!

I was looking at that oximeter you mention, but according to reviews, they updated the firmware, which made it much more difficult to get the data out of the thing. I actually spent a fair amount of time looking for a pulse oximeter I could get data out of when I was getting diagnosed; I never found anything that looked like it would work without significant reverse engineering.

I haven't even setup sleepyhead, so I haven't really been looking at the data. I should do that.

Shocking my throat sounds... like a hilarious way to improve sleep? I have a few friends who got various kinds of surgery; they all speak really highly of it, but my doctor said that it's super common for the problem to reoccur after a few years. seems like maybe electrically stimulating my throat might be more resistant to "growing back".

> ... the mechanism is super simple and I'm pretty sure I could rig one up (minus the auto-adjust) for like $30 of parts; it's just an air compressor lubricated with something that doesn't stink with a regulator. As far as I can tell, if you want a CPAP machine and are paying full freight, you can pay anywhere from $300 to $3000, which seems pretty cheap for the difference it makes.

Part of the price is no doubt to cover the cost of liability insurance for the manufacturer, the distributor, etc., in case a user claims that the machine malfunctioned and damaged the user's sinuses, throat, or whatever. (My dad used a CPAP machine.)

But... I don't think that detracts from my main point, which was to give an example of a technology that was "simply too cheap to be developed" that was, in fact developed.

Sure, for various reasons it ended up not costing pennies, but my point is just that the underlying concept is extremely simple and if you ignore all the things that makes good engineering expensive, and all the things that make medical devices expensive, potentially quite cheap.

On a semi-serious note, you might want to start playing didgeridoo, and have a look at the recent Ig Nobels. There has been some ongoing (very serious) research on treating sleep apnea that way.

You're talking to a man who has already failed to drop the extra weight (and there's a whole lot of data showing being skinnier helps a lot; not only with sleep apnea, but with a whole raft of other health and social issues.) I mean, in a real way, I'm here because I find exercising enough and not eating too much to be difficult, so exercising in a very specific way is probably not going to work as well for me as just using the equipment.

My understanding is that most people have difficulty with CPAP machines mostly because they can't seem to get the thing to fit, (I solved that problem for me by simply buying new masks until I found one that worked well for me.) or because the dang thing is too loud (I solved that by buying a more expensive air compressor) or because they went somewhere else for the night and didn't bring it (I solved that by buying a super small unit I can keep in the bottom of my backpack) or because they're embarrassed to sleep with a life support looking mask on their face (I bought an 'Aliens' licensed 'face hugger' plushie from thinkgeek, with the intention of sewing it onto my portable mask to deal with this... but I haven't; turns out I am not afraid of looking like a dying old man if doing so makes me act a lot less like a dying old man when I'm awake. I still think I might attach the plushie at some point because I find the idea hilarious, though.)

But the point is that mechanical solutions are much easier for me than for most people; I've been a technician all my life; making machines work is what I do, and I'm pretty good at it, and I have a reasonably decent income with no kids, so I don't have to worry about the cost of medical devices. On the other hand, as far as I can tell, I'm not any better than average at making myself work out (which is... pretty bad. There's a vanishingly small percentage of the population that was obese for any period of time who manages to return and stay within a normal bmi.) even after applying my ability to buy and operate equipment to the problem.

Also, did you see the cracked.com article on the subject? good stuff.

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