Transcranial ultrasound stimulation effect in the redundant and synergistic networks consistent across macaques

Abstract

Low-intensity transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) is a non-invasive technique that safely alters neural activity, reaching deep brain areas with good spatial accuracy. We investigated the effects of TUS at the level of macaque using a recent metric, the synergy minus redundancy rank gradient, that quantifies different kinds of causal neural information processing. We analyzed this high-order quantity on the fMRI data after TUS in two targets: the supplementary motor area (SMA-TUS) and the frontal polar cortex (FPC-TUS). The TUS produced specific changes at the limbic network at FPC-TUS and the motor network at SMA-TUS and altered, in both targets, the sensorimotor, temporal, and frontal networks, consistent across macaques. Moreover, there was a reduction in the structural and functional coupling after both stimulations. Finally, the TUS changed the intrinsic high-order network topology, decreasing the modular organization of the redundancy at SMA-TUS and increasing the synergistic integration at FPC-TUS.

Time-varying synergy/redundancy dominance in the human cerebral cortex

“…In humans, synergistic interactions are clinically relevant and implicated in Alzheimer's disease [27], stroke recovery [28], schizophrenia [29], and Autism Spectrum Disorder [30]. They change characteristically during healthy aging [14,15], and are clinically manipulable through transcranial ultrasound stimulation [31]. Additionally, several studies have proposed that synergistic interactions play a key role in human cognition and consciousness [11,[32][33][34].…”