From new surgical techniques and treatments to studies on neurodegenerative disease, here are five of the top brain science stories from this year.

Liraglutide slowing Alzheimer’s

Liraglutide, popularly known as Ozempic, has been trending as the latest weight loss drug in Hollywood, but researchers at Imperial have discovered a new possible use for it. Professor Paul Edison, Professor of Neuroscience at Imperial’s Department of Brain Sciences, presented new research at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference that shows the weight loss drug may be neuroprotective for people with Alzheimer’s disease.

In the progression of Alzheimer’s disease a reduction in brain volume is usually seen with the brain shrinking as damage spreads. In their research, they found that the brain volume loss of patients who had received liraglutide was reduced by almost 50%. They also found that these patients showed a slower decline in their cognitive function. The drug is thought to work by decreasing inflammation, insulin resistance, tau protein aggregation and the build up of amyloid in the brain.

Professor Edison, leader of the study, commented that “If scientists are able to further demonstrate that this is working in patients with Alzheimer's disease phase 3 trials, and the FDA approves it for Alzheimer’s, this drug could then be immediately available.”

The Landmark project

Imperial College London is teaming up with Parkinson’s UK, GSK, Novartis, Roche and UCB for the Landmark research project that will help us to understand Parkinson’s at a deeper level with the goal of discovering new drug targets.

In this three year research project, the scientists from Imperial will sequence tissue samples from the Parkinson’s UK Brain Bank, based at Imperial, to map the gene expression across various cell types. This map will help researchers to predict Parkinson’s, improve the accuracy of computational models used in discovering drug targets, and help the researchers gain a greater understanding of how Parkinson’s progresses at the cellular and genetic level.

This research will produce a large dataset that scientists across the globe can use for Parkinson’s research. This data will also be used by the drug development sector of Parkinson’s UK, Parkinson’s Virtual Biotech, and Parkinson’s Foundation to develop new treatments for Parkinson’s.

Brain fluid surgery

Experts at Imperial have found a shunt surgery – a technique that uses a thin tube to drain excess cerebrospinal fluid from your brain to another part of the body – that may help patients with idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus (iNPH). iNPH is a brain disease where the fluid-filled structures in the brain expand which can lead to symptoms including the inability to walk and dementia. This new treatment that diverts the excess fluid away from the brain may help to alleviate these symptoms in the short term.

Dr Chris Carswell, Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer from the Department of Brain Sciences, expressed that these findings will help clinicians to have a more informed discussion with their patients and to consider iNPH as a treatable disease.

"iNPH is an extremely disabling condition but by analysing the highest quality trials, we can see that surgery can improve walking and disability levels."

Blood test for brain cancer

A clinical study carried out with patients from the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence has shown how a blood test may be the first ever technique for non-invasively detecting inaccessible brain tumours. Imperial researchers are hoping that this blood test will help patients with glioblastoma (GBM), a deadly form of brain cancer that often involves an invasive and risky surgery for diagnosis.

The blood test is called the TriNetra-Glio blood test and works by isolating the tumour cells circulating in the blood. These cells are then stained and identified under a microscope allowing for diagnosis. With this blood test, the diagnosis process could become quicker and treatment could become less expensive and better tailored to patients’ needs.

If a successful and larger study is conducted in the UK, then this technique could benefit patients in as soon as two years.

Blood test for identifying the cause of brain injury in babies

Neuroscience researchers at Imperial have found that a blood test can help identify the cause of brain injury in newborn babies. They found that there are detectable patterns of gene expression in the blood that can highlight the cause of injury. By determining this cause, doctors will be able to better predict if a cooling treatment is the best method of action for the brain injury.

Professor Sudhin Thayyil, Director of the Centre for Perinatal Neuroscience, stated “Although cases of brain injury in babies may appear similar, they can be quite different in terms of how they come about, as our study shows.”

The study found that the gene expression in babies from lower- and middle-income countries resembled the gene expression seen in sleep apnoea, suggesting that the cause for their brain injury was brought on by multiple stresses during pregnancy such as poor nutrition or infection. Conversely, babies from higher-income countries showed a gene expression pattern that represented brain injury from a single, acute cause from complications such as maternal bleeding.

These different causes may explain why cooling treatment has been effective for babies in higher-income countries but detrimental to those from lower- and middle-income countries. The researchers are now working to help clinicians around the world detect what kind of brain injury they are treating, with the aim of improving outcomes for newborns.