Staff writer Jorja Adamczyk delves into a new ultrasound system which could be used by King’s researchers to better understand conditions including Parkinson’s disease and epilepsy.
King’s College London’s (KCL’s) School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging has secured £688,820 in funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), a major funder of world-leading life science research.
King’s is set to become the first UK institution to acquire the NeuroFUS 3D system, a next-generation transcranial ultrasound platform. The programme, which is developed in collaboration with Brainbox Ltd, is designed to deliver focused ultrasound to precisely targeted regions of the brain.
The significance lies in what this technology could make possible. Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation (TUS), the neuromodulation technique used by NeuroFUS 3D, can focus acoustic energy into small, precisely defined regions deep within the brain without opening the skull, making it non-invasive.
This offers a different approach to existing non-invasive techniques such as Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), which are limited to more superficial brain areas. Human studies have already demonstrated that TUS can modulate neural activity, brain connectivity, neurochemistry and behaviour, including in deeper brain regions.
But how is TUS different from other ultrasound technologies and what does NeuroFUS 3D add to TUS?
Conventional ultrasound imaging uses sound waves to visualise tissues. High-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) can use much higher intensities to heat and destroy targeted tissue. TUS is different in that it uses low-intensity, focused ultrasound to change neural activity without damaging the surrounding areas.
NeuroFUS 3D takes this concept further by giving researchers greater control over the delivery of TUS. Its 3D beam steering technology allows the ultrasound focus to be electronically moved through the brain without physically moving the device. This advance in precision means that NeuroFUS 3D may have the capability to treat a variety of neurological and psychiatric illnesses such as chronic pain, epilepsy, treatment-resistant depression and even accelerate stroke recovery.
For KCL, the most significant additions appear to be the potential integration of this system with St Thomas’ Hospital’s MRI scanner. This could allow researchers to precisely stimulate a targeted brain region with ultrasound, while using advanced neuroimaging to investigate the resulting changes in brain activity.
Rather than just having another brain stimulation tool, KCL would have a platform to both stimulate these specific, deeper brain regions while observing the corresponding human brain circuits with high spatial precision.
“NeuroFUS 3D is a platform built for multimodal research, and King’s is an ideal place to host it. With expertise in ultrasound physics, neuromodulation and imaging all under one roof, we can combine focused ultrasound with advanced neuroimaging to understand fundamental brain processes in both pre-clinical models and humans, and to translate that understanding into new, non-invasive approaches to influence brain function.”
Dr Ines Violante, Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Engineering at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences
“It is an exciting time for neurotechnology, and we look forward to making the platform available to researchers across the UK and to training the next generation of neurotechnology researchers on it.”
Dr Ines Violante, Senior Lecturer in Healthcare Engineering at the School of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging Sciences
The potential applications extend across neurological conditions, with movement disorders being one particularly exciting area. TUS is being investigated as a way of modulating neural circuits involved in Parkinson’s disease, tremor and dystonia.
As many of these circuits are found deep within the brain, TUS could offer a non-invasive way to investigate them and explore new approaches to understanding, and possibly even treating these life-altering conditions.
About the author
