Neural Noise

Transcranial focused ultrasound for intracranial ablation, drug delivery, and neuromodulation

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  • Transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) is an emerging neuromodulation and therapeutic technology offering noninvasive, submillimeter precision for targeting deep brain structures.1
  • Unlike TMS and tES, which are limited by depth–focality tradeoffs, tFUS can reach deep targets with minimal risk.1
  • Unlike deep brain stimulation (DBS), tFUS is noninvasive and avoids the cost and morbidity of surgery.1
  • Applications include ablation for movement and psychiatric disorders, drug delivery, and neuromodulation.1 1

Gardner updates

  • Researchers have proposed a roadmap for using transcranial focused ultrasound as a noninvasive tool to stimulate the brain and probe its function (e.g. consciousness research). 2

  • Alteration of water exchange rates following focused ultrasound-mediated BBB opening in the dorsal striatum of non-human primates has been measured with diffusion-prepared pCASL (NeuroImage). 3

  • Alteration of water exchange rates following focused ultrasound-mediated BBB opening in the dorsal striatum of non-human primates was reported in a diffusion-prepared pCASL study (NeuroImage, 2026). 3

  • Holographic transcranial ultrasound neuromodulation enhances stimulation efficacy by cooperatively recruiting distributed brain circuits, improving on single-focus methods. 4

  • An ultrasound system enables non-invasive, precise neuromodulation of human deep brain circuits, expanding alternatives to tDCS/tACS and invasive DBS. 5

  • Low-intensity transcranial focused ultrasound targeting the motor thalamus has therapeutic potential for motor impairment after basal ganglia stroke (Clinical Neurophysiology). 6

  • tFUS offers noninvasive, submillimeter precision for deep brain structures; it contrasts with TMS/tES (depth–focality tradeoffs) and DBS (invasive, costly), with applications in ablation and therapeutic neuromodulation (IEEE Reviews in Biomedical Engineering). 1

Footnotes

  1. http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11241049 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  2. https://news.mit.edu/2026/new-tool-could-tell-us-how-consciousness-works-0112 ↩

  3. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811926001230?dgcid=rss_sd_all ↩ ↩2

  4. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiX0FVX3lxTFBTSzRVMGctSzFKb2dIdjBHVC1YUS1ZdGd4MW5Vemtfc0pQY0UtSl9oMk0tNnVRQ2dxZ1lKTjltOWNxcHhVOE1aLUZvSlEwek4weWROdVViYXJwWGdFaUdn?oc=5 ↩

  5. https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMiX0FVX3lxTE1uZUMwMU5IUi1rMnNEaEhSMUFGYjgzWDdsTmVGREN2Z0JrN1ZPVV9uVW9BMlpvdG9SYzU5cFFTN2FrYTFleTNnNHFPOS1YV2pWYkJ4eDRSSndwOVR0S3JV?oc=5 ↩

  6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1388245726002063?dgcid=rss_sd_all ↩

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