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A mother’s mind appears restored: might ultrasound be a cure for Alzheimer’s?
After treatment for a separate condition, a Chinese neurologist noticed improvements in cognition
Shi Huang
Published: 9:00am, 23 Jan 2026
Neurologist Sun Bomin’s mother led him to believe that Alzheimer’s disease might not be incurable after all.
On January 21, Sun released a short video on China’s Yitiao.tv platform and an article detailing what he said was the world’s first effective treatment of Alzheimer’s disease using the high-intensity FUS procedure.
His mother, who appeared in the video but was not named, is aged in her nineties and had been suffering from the progressive brain disorder for around eight years.
According to Sun, the disease had erased memories, stripped her of any sense of time and left her in a state of passive silence – unresponsive even to the death of a close family member.
However, he said, in 2024, during a high-intensity focused ultrasound (FUS) procedure to treat another condition, her cognition was unexpectedly sparked and she began to recognise family members, do calculations, respond appropriately and express emotional needs.
He said she even showed she could start counting backwards from 100 by sevens – a standard diagnostic tool used in Alzheimer’s and dementia assessments.
Sun is carrying out further research following the anecdotal findings. Although he has not yet published his work on the possible Alzheimer’s treatment in a scientific paper, he is conducting a first clinical trial of high-intensity FUS on seven patients, with two patients reportedly showing rapid improvement.
“Overall, the results are still very encouraging,” he concluded in the video testimonial.
Sun is a professor and director of the functional neurosurgery centre at Shanghai Ruijin Hospital, and a vice-president of the World Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery.
His career has focused on surgical interventions for neurological and psychiatric disorders. At the end of the 20th century, Sun began treating obsessive-compulsive disorder using lesion surgery and implanting brain pacemakers.
Later, he researched the use of brain-computer interfaces to treat severe depression and FUS to treat anorexia nervosa.
However, he said the use of FUS to treat Alzheimer’s disease was an unexpected discovery inspired by his mother who in 2024 had gradually developed dystonia, a disorder causing involuntary muscle contractions and movements, including tongue protrusion.
Professor Sun Bomin has built a career on surgical interventions for neurological and psychiatric disorders. Photo: Handout
He performed the FUS – commonly known as “magnetic wave knife” – procedure on her, reporting a 50 per cent improvement and decreased tongue protrusion.
A month later, a carer for Sun’s mother told the professor that she had noticed improved cognitive abilities. Over the next two to three months, relatives visiting Sun’s mother and carers reported a significant difference.
Sun said that a non-surgical intervention intended to treat movement disorders had unexpectedly shattered the long-held belief that “Alzheimer’s disease is incurable”.
He said he was thrilled after finding that FUS had improved his mother’s cognitive issues and had gathered his team to discuss further investigation. After more than a year of preparation and going through the hospital’s ethical review process, he officially began clinical research.
FUS has gained widespread attention as a promising new strategy in neurosurgery whose appeal lies in its non-invasive ability to directly apply multiple intersecting high-frequency sound waves for precise treatment or modulation of the intracranial environment.
Its principle is similar to that of a solar cooker, where multiple ultrasound waves from different directions are focused on a single point, allowing them to exert force or generate heat at that point.
Traditional ultrasound therapy can break down kidney stones externally or focus on a single point to heat and destroy tumours or uterine fibroids.
Sun’s clinical study of FUS for patients with Alzheimer’s disease was launched last year with seven patients in the first group.
“Two severely affected patients showed changes the day after [the non-invasive] surgery, but the effects gradually diminished later on. However, the remaining patients experienced varying degrees of improvement, with an average improvement rate of about 50 per cent,” Sun said.
According to his introduction in the video, the changes in a patient using the pseudonym Wang Guifang were stark. Sun said she had been a moderate to severe patient, suffering from memory loss and described as sitting idly all day with a vacant expression. He said changes after treatment were observed as gradual and comprehensive.
In an article published on the same account as the video, Sun said Wang’s daughter had documented her mother’s gradual progress, sending almost daily updates on changes she observed in her mother to Sun.
Her mother began to engage in family conversations and was taking the initiative to do household chores – washing clothes and folding quilts – things she had not done since becoming ill. She even reportedly revived her pre-illness hobby of singing, insisting that her family take her to karaoke every weekend.
Patients wear a helmet equipped with 1,024 miniature “transducers” which during treatment simultaneously emit high-energy ultrasound waves. Each ultrasound beam passes through the scalp and skull to reach nerves deep in the brain.
During treatment, the patient must undergo an MRI while wearing a helmet, enabling precise synchronised positioning.
Sun said he believed the shock effect it produced was key to improving Alzheimer’s symptoms.
“Just like shaking a winnowing basket to separate corn and rice – after the shaking, the original chaotic mess is transformed and restratified. This kind of ‘shaking’ may have cleared abnormal protein deposits, activated dormant neural circuits, or acted simultaneously at multiple levels. What exactly has been changed remains unknown at present,” Sun said.
In an earlier paper on FUS treatment guidelines, Sun said side effects from the treatment included mild oedema after focused ultrasound therapy, leading to headaches and dizziness, which typically subsided within a week.
In China, the number of dementia cases – including Alzheimer’s and other forms – has increased faster than anywhere else in the world.
Diagnosed cases have risen from around 4 million in 1990 to 17 million in 2021, according to a Fudan University study reported in May last year.
In China, non-pharmacological treatments for Alzheimer’s disease hold immense interest.
In 2021, a private hospital in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, first performed a lymphatic-venous anastomosis surgery, claiming it could cure Alzheimer’s disease. By the end of 2024, nearly 400 hospitals across the country had carried out the procedure.
However, in July 2025, this surgical treatment for Alzheimer’s disease was prohibited from being promoted for commercial therapy, with only the possibility of re-evaluation after rigorous clinical trials were conducted. |
