Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS)

[Krolo]

So I ran across an article about Ultrasound Brain Stimulation. Seems it could potentially help regarding turning of overactive neurons.

"The results showed that 40 seconds of repetitive ultrasound changed brain activity for up to two hours. Ultrasound caused the stimulated brain area to interact more selectively with the rest of the brain."
https://elifesciences.org/digests/40541/brain-stimulation-goes-ultrasonic​

And here is abstract from the research paper:

"Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) is a promising non-invasive brain stimulation technique. To date, investigations report short-lived neuromodulatory effects, but to deliver on its full potential for research and therapy, ultrasound protocols are required that induce longer-lasting 'offline' changes.

Here, we present a TUS protocol that modulates brain activation in macaques for more than one hour after 40 s of stimulation, while circumventing auditory confounds. Normally activity in brain areas reflects activity in interconnected regions but TUS caused stimulated areas to interact more selectively with the rest of the brain. In a within-subject design, we observe regionally specific TUS effects for two medial frontal brain regions - supplementary motor area and frontal polar cortex. Independently of these site-specific effects, TUS also induced signal changes in the meningeal compartment. TUS effects were temporary and not associated with microstructural changes."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30747105/​

 

[MattS]

Yeah, TUS is emerging as a pretty interesting technology. It has way more spatial specificity that other stimulation technologies, and can also get at deeper parts of the brain more accurately. So that's all really good.

Will it help with tinnius? Who knows - but it's going to be an interesting technology to watch over the next few years. (Yes, years - sorry all).