Slowing down ALS with electroceuticals. Home testing is underway

The researchers ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and the Italian Auxological Institute IRCCS of Milan, thanks to the funding of the "Nicola Irti Foundation for works of charity and culture", will collaborate for the pilot project which studies the effectiveness of static magnetic stimulation of the cerebral cortex to reduce the progression of Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)

27 June 2019 - The experiment aimed at slowing down the progression of the disease for patients with ALS is based on electroceuticals. The pilot project was developed byUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and the Italian Auxological Institute IRCCS of Milan, thanks to the support of the "'Nicola Irti' Foundation for works of charity and culture".

The research was presented today, Thursday 27 June, at 11.30, in the Aula Magna of the Campus Bio-Medico University, in the presence of the president ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Felice Barela, by the president of the Italian Auxological Institute, Michael Colasanto, and of the president of the "'Nicola Irti' foundation for works of charity and culture", Natalino Irti.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a rapidly progressive neurodegenerative disease with a poor prognosis involving the first and second motor neurons. To date, there are no therapies capable of significantly modifying the course of the disease even if the scientific community is actively engaged in pre-clinical and clinical research.

Starting in 2004, a series of preliminary studies conducted by professor Vincenzo Di Lazzaro, director of the complex operating unit of Neurology del Campus Bio-Medico University Hospitalsuggests that it is possible to significantly slow the progression of ALS using non-invasive magnetic brain stimulation techniques.

An innovative element of the experimentation is the application of electroceutic stimulation not in the hospital but at the patient's home, to evaluate the efficacy of repeated and prolonged stimulation.

"Today - explains the teacher Vincenzo Di Lazzaro - we finally have a stimulation method available that patients can easily use at home every day. Our hope is that prolonged transcranial brain stimulation may have greater efficacy in reducing the progression of ALS. In fact, for many years we have demonstrated that magnetic stimulation carried out for short cycles seems to determine a slight reduction in the rate of progression of the disease. With this new trial, for the first time we will make the leap from a form of episodic stimulation in the hospital to a protracted and prolonged stimulation that patients will be able to manage independently by coming to the hospital only for periodic check-ups". concludes Di Lazzaro.

"ALS - adds the teacher Vincenzo Silan, professor of Neurology at the University of Milan and director of the Neurology operating unit and of the Neuroscience research laboratory of the Italian Auxological Institute - is experiencing a very special and intense moment because the level of knowledge relating to the pathogenetic bases of the disease has been incredibly enriched in recent years with new genetic discoveries (over 30 causal genes), the definition of unprecedented disease mechanisms, the preparation of mice transgenics to test new drugs, the discovery of the first disease biomarkers and, lastly, the use of stem cells obtained from the skin or blood of the patient himself to study molecules for clinical use. To complete the picture, the first personalized therapies for the correction of genetic defects are underway: both for the SOD1 gene and for the C9orf72. A therapeutic spring can be foreseen for a disease that has been dramatically incurable up to now but which can represent, however, the reference for all neurodegenerative pathologies".

For the pilot study they will be recruited 40 patients with ALS, aged between 18 and 75 years, with an onset of disease less than 24 months and clinical evidence of rapid progression but with preserved respiratory function. They will then be divided into two groups of 20 people each: the first will be treated with real static magnetic stimulation, the second with placebo stimulation. The trial will last six months and will take place at the patient's home.

"This initiative is further evidence of the fruitful collaboration that can be achieved between private entities and healthcare facilities, in order to promote research and the development of medical therapies", says the Professor Natalino Irti, president of the "'Nicola Irti' foundation for works of charity and culture" which since 2011 aims to achieve cultural goals (scholarships, prizes, restorations, etc.) and social and medical ones.