Rationale: Treating diseases of the brain such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) is challenging as the blood-brain barrier (BBB) effectively restricts access of a large number of potentially useful drugs. A potential solution to this problem is presented by therapeutic ultrasound, a novel treatment modality that can achieve transient BBB opening in species including rodents, facilitated by biologically inert microbubbles that are routinely used in a clinical setting for contrast enhancement. However, in translating rodent studies to the human brain, the presence of a thick cancellous skull that both absorbs and distorts ultrasound presents a challenge. A larger animal model that is more similar to humans is therefore required in order to establish a suitable protocol and to test devices. Here we investigated whether sheep provide such a model.

中文翻译：

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将绵羊确定为实验物种，以验证超声介导的血脑屏障开放性，以进行潜在的治疗干预

理由：由于诸如血脑屏障（BBB）有效地限制了许多潜在有用药物的使用，因此治疗诸如阿尔茨海默氏病（AD）等脑部疾病具有挑战性。治疗超声是解决该问题的一种潜在方法，超声是一种新颖的治疗方式，可以在包括啮齿类动物在内的物种中实现短暂的血脑屏障开放，而生物学上惰性的微气泡通常在临床上用于增强对比，从而促进了这种作用。然而，在将啮齿动物研究转化为人脑的过程中，既存在厚的松质头骨又会吸收和扭曲超声波的存在提出了挑战。因此，为了建立合适的协议并测试设备，需要一个更类似于人类的更大的动物模型。在这里，我们调查了绵羊是否提供了这样的模型。