Neuromodulation with transcranial focused ultrasound

Abstract

<jats:p>The understanding of brain function and the capacity to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders rest on the ability to intervene in neuronal activity in specific brain circuits. Current methods of neuromodulation incur a tradeoff between spatial focus and the level of invasiveness. Transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS) is emerging as a neuromodulation approach that combines noninvasiveness with focus that can be relatively sharp even in regions deep in the brain. This may enable studies of the causal role of specific brain regions in specific behaviors and behavioral disorders. In addition to causal brain mapping, the spatial focus of FUS opens new avenues for treatments of neurological and psychiatric conditions. This review introduces existing and emerging FUS applications in neuromodulation, discusses the mechanisms of FUS effects on cellular excitability, considers the effects of specific stimulation parameters, and lays out the directions for future work.</jats:p>

Intrinsic Cell-type Selectivity and Inter-neuronal Connectivity Alteration by Transcranial Focused Ultrasound

“…Neurons exhibit different action potential waveforms due to the difference in distribution of membrane proteins both in channel types and relative quantity of each type of ion channel. These distinct types of membrane proteins may have different response dynamics to acoustic radiation force (Kubanek, 2018;Tyler, 2011). The basis of our hypothesis was demonstrated between the FSUs and RSUs in rat S1 cortex.…”

Manipulation of subcortical and deep cortical activity in the primate brain using transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation

“…However, recent investigations on the interactions between sound pressure waves and brain tissue suggest that ultrasound primarily exerts its modulato-ry effects through a mechanical action on cell membranes, notably affecting ion channel gating (Kubanek et al, 2016;Prieto et al, 2013;Tyler et al, 2008). While the precise mechanism is being determined (Kubanek, 2018;Kubanek et al, 2018;Tyler et al, 2018) the current results suggest TUS may be suitable as a tool for focal manipulation of activity in many brain areas in primates. Specifically, they show that TUS may even be used to manipulate activity in subcortical structures in monkeys.…”

Transcranial ultrasound selectively biases decision-making in primates

“…Nonetheless, the finding that noninvasive ultrasound can produce e↵ects of similar magnitudes as those induced by drugs injected through craniotomies has strong implications for future research of basic brain function. Ultrasound, by virtue of its noninvasiveness and spatial flexibility, may for the first time enable us to screen the contribution of specific brain regions to a given behavior or disease sign systematically, one by one, and in a personalized fashion (Kubanek, 2018).…”

“…One such approach, ultrasound, can be applied through the intact skull and skin and focused into tight regions deep in the human brain (Ghanouni et al, 2015). At the focus, ultrasound has been shown to modulate neural activity (Naor et al, 2016;Fini and Tyler, 2017;Kubanek, 2018;Tyler et al, 2018;Fomenko et al, 2018). By virtue of its noninvasiveness and spatial focus, the approach has a unique promise in modulating the activity of specific circuits in a systematic fashion.…”