A novel electric field approach for improving cognitive function through ameliorating cell-specific pathology in P301S tauopathy mice.

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a devastating neurodegenerative disorder, with no effective treatment currently available. Recently, non-pharmacological therapy, especially gamma frequency stimulation has shown promising therapeutic effects in Alzheimer's disease (AD) mouse models. Electric field (EF) is a non-invasive biophysical approach for neuronal protection. However, whether EF is beneficial in AD neuropathology remains unknown. In this study, we exposed the P301S tauopathy mouse model to EF at gamma frequency on the head. We demonstrated that EF treatment significantly improved the cognitive impairments in the P301S mice. This was accompanied by reduced tau pathologies, suppressed microglial activation, neuroinflammation and oxidative stress in the tauopathy mouse brain. Moreover, EF treatment induced cell-specific responses in neural cells, with neurons being more susceptible, followed by microglia and oligodendrocytes. EF also had favorable effects on synaptic protein in neurons, inflammatory response and complement signaling in microglia, and myelination in oligodendrocytes. This study provides strong evidence that EF at gamma frequency may have great potential to be a novel therapeutic intervention for P301S by attenuating neuropathology and offering neuroprotection.