Abstract
Background
Low intensity transcranial ultrasonic stimulation (TUS) has been demonstrated to non-invasively
and transiently stimulate the nervous system. Although US neuromodulation has appeared
robust in rodent studies, the effects of US in large mammals and humans have been
modest at best. In addition, there is a lack of direct recordings from the stimulated
neurons in response to US. Our study investigates the magnitude of the US effects
on neuronal discharge in awake behaving monkeys and thus fills the void on both fronts.
Objective/Hypothesis
In this study, we demonstrate the feasibility of recording action potentials in the
supplementary eye field (SEF) as TUS is applied simultaneously to the frontal eye
field (FEF) in macaques performing an antisaccade task.
Results
We show that compared to a control stimulation in the visual cortex, SEF activity
is significantly modulated shortly after TUS onset. Among all cell types 40% of neurons
significantly changed their activity after TUS. Half of the neurons showed a transient
increase of activity induced by TUS.
Conclusion
Our study demonstrates that the neuromodulatory effects of non-invasive focused ultrasound
can be assessed in real time in awake behaving monkeys by recording discharge activity
from a brain region reciprocally connected with the stimulated region. The study opens
the door for further parametric studies for fine-tuning the ultrasonic parameters.
The ultrasonic effect could indeed be quantified based on the direct measurement of
the intensity of the modulation induced on a single neuron in a freely performing
animal. The technique should be readily reproducible in other primate laboratories
studying brain function, both for exploratory and therapeutic purposes and to facilitate
the development of future clinical TUS devices.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 26, 2017
Accepted:
July 19,
2017
Received in revised form:
July 15,
2017
Received:
January 4,
2017
Identification
Copyright
© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
