Deep brain stimulation has shown promise in treating conditions ranging from epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease to cluster headaches, depression and schizophrenia.
Unfortunately, this approach requires brain surgery, with doctors drilling into the patient’s skull to implant tiny devices that deliver mild electrical pulses.
But a new ultrasound helmet might be able to precisely stimulate areas deep in the brain without the need for surgery, according to findings just published recently in the journal Nature Communications.
The helmet can target areas about 1,000 times smaller than conventional ultrasound devices and 30 times smaller than previous ultrasound devices built for deep brain stimulation (DBS), researchers said.
“Clinically, this new technology could transform treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders like Parkinson’s disease, depression and essential tremor, offering unprecedented precision in targeting specific brain circuits that play key roles in these conditions,” senior researcher Bradley Treeby, an honorary professor of biomedical ultrasound at the University College London, said in a news release.
Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) can alter the activity of neurons through the use of gentle high-intensity sound waves, researchers said in background notes.
However, up to now, these systems have struggled to reach deeper areas of the brain with the precision needed for proper treatment, researchers said.
The experimental helmet contains 256 individually controllable ultrasound elements that can send focused beams of ultrasound to specific parts of the brain. These beams can enhance or diminishing neuron activity.
The patient lies on their back and slides their head into the helmet, researchers said in their paper. A soft plastic face mask helps keep their head still during the ultrasound treatment.
Researchers tested the helmet on seven people by targeting a part of the thalamus, a small structure in the brain’s center that relays sensory and motor information.
