Potential Application of Photobiomodulation in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a kind of age-related degenerative neurological disease with hidden onset. Patients eventually have severe memory impairment and lose daily living ability. With the aging of the global population, the number of AD patients is also increasing, resulting serious economic burden of family and society. However, there is lack of safety and effective treatment strategy for AD control except medicine administration. Based on the characteristics of long latency and duration of AD, exploring non-invasive physical therapy is of great significance to alleviate the disease and guarantee the quality of life of patients. Photobiomodulation (PBM) is a type of phototherapy, utilizing red or near-infrared (NIR) light to stimulate tissues that have been injured, degraded or at risk of death to heal and regenerate. In the past two decades, as a new treatment, PBM has been broadly used in analgesia, anti-inflammation and tissue regeneration, and simultaneously widely studied in neurology and psychiatry. More and more studies have confirmed that PBM could effectively delay the progression of AD by reducing neuronal DNA damage and microglial inflammatory response, improving synaptic function, and enhancing neuroprotective factors. In this paper, the research of PBM in AD regulation is reviewed, especially for the application of PBM in clinical treatment of AD in recent years, to provide reference for the development and application of non-invasive treatment of AD.