For one family in Shanghai, it suddenly seemed possible. After nearly a decade of advanced Alzheimer’s, a woman in her nineties who rarely spoke or recognized loved ones began naming relatives again, chatting more easily, and even doing mental math.
The change followed a high-intensity focused ultrasound session that was supposed to treat a movement disorder, not her memory.
The neurologist behind the procedure, Sun Bomin, leads the Center for Functional Neurosurgery at Ruijin Hospital in Shanghai. He later said the treatment seemed to “switch on” his mother’s cognition.
That single case pushed him to launch a small clinical trial with seven people who have moderate-to-severe Alzheimer’s. According to early reports, two patients showed rapid improvement, while the rest experienced partial gains that Sun roughly estimates at around half of their previous function.
What happened inside the helmet?
Sun’s mother did not go into the scanner for dementia. She was being treated for dystonia, a movement disorder that causes painful muscle contractions. During the procedure she wore a helmet fitted with more than a thousand miniature ultrasound transducers. These components send sound waves through the skull from many angles.
The waves travel harmlessly through most tissue until they converge at a precise point deep in the brain, where their energy adds up and can gently heat or mechanically nudge the targeted area, while doctors monitor everything on magnetic resonance imaging.
For years, similar systems have been used to burn tumors or calm tremors without opening the skull. Sun adjusted the settings to modulate tissue instead of destroying it. He has compared the effect to shaking a basket of rice so the grains settle into a new pattern.
The working idea is that these pulses may reorder misfiring neural circuits or help clear abnormal protein deposits that clog communication between brain cells. At the same time, he openly admits that “what exactly is being changed is still unknown”.
About a month after that first treatment, the family’s caregiver started to notice a shift. The once-withdrawn woman recognized her son and daughter-in-law, expressed needs more clearly, and managed daily movements with greater control.
In a video circulating on Chinese platforms, Sun asks her to subtract seven repeatedly from one hundred, a classic bedside test of attention and working memory. She answers correctly and keeps going. For anyone who has watched a parent slip away at the kitchen table, that kind of reversal feels almost unreal.
How this fits into global ultrasound research
So is this finally the cure families have been waiting for? Most researchers would say that goes too far. Sun’s trial still involves only seven participants, his results have not yet appeared in a peer-reviewed journal, and he has reported that some of the gains in the sickest patients faded over time.
Even so, his work does not appear out of the blue. Around the world, teams are studying lower-intensity focused ultrasound as a way to briefly open the blood-brain barrier, the protective lining that blocks many medicines from entering the brain.
A recent systematic review in the Journal of Prevention of Alzheimer’s Disease concluded that early trials largely show this technique can safely enhance drug delivery without obvious tissue damage, although clear improvements in thinking and memory remain limited so far.
At Columbia University, six people with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s received a portable ultrasound treatment that opened the barrier in part of the frontal lobe. The procedure appeared safe. Brain scans showed changes in amyloid plaque levels in treated regions, while cognitive test scores stayed mostly stable.
Meanwhile, a small study in South Korea used repeated sessions of focused ultrasound to open larger frontal areas in six patients.
All of them completed the protocol without serious side effects. Standard memory tests did not jump in a dramatic way, but caregivers reported better mood and behavior in most participants, suggesting that any benefits right now may lean more toward easing symptoms than restoring lost abilities.
What it means for families right now
For families caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, it is hard not to feel a surge of hope when they see clips of a once-silent patient singing again or scrolling through phone contacts on their own.
Estimates suggest that millions of people worldwide live with Alzheimer’s and other dementias, including roughly seventeen million in China, so any credible new approach will draw intense attention.
At the end of the day, though, focused ultrasound is still an experimental option for Alzheimer’s. Access is limited to research centers. Regulators need long-term safety data. The best designed trials so far have shown modest shifts in symptoms rather than full restoration of memory or independence.
Many experts see ultrasound as one more tool that may eventually work alongside drug treatments, cognitive training, exercise, and simple daily support, not as a stand-alone magic fix.
Still, the Shanghai case matters because it hints that sound waves might do more than simply open a gate for medicines. Carefully tuned pulses could, at least for some patients and for some period of time, jolt dormant circuits and ease part of the emotional and behavioral weight that makes dementia so hard on families.
The challenge now is to test that idea rigorously, with transparent trials, realistic expectations, and clear communication so that hope does not outrun evidence.
The report was published on Sixth Tone.
