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Abstract:
Ultrasound Neuromodulation of the Deep Brain: From Brain States to 
Decision-Making and Emotion Circuits

Understanding the relationships between brain and behavior is one of the main goals of neuroscience and is crucial for the development of novel rehabilitative technologies. When it comes to humans, however, we still lack an established tool able to modulate activity in deep brain areas with millimetric resolution and in a non-invasive and reversible manner. Beyond neurorehabilitation, the understanding of the functional role of a brain area can be established only through causal inference, that is by manipulating its activity and observing associated behavioral and state changes. Current reversible neuromodulation methods, however, are limited in both the spatial resolution they can achieve and the depth they can effectively target within the brain. Novel focused transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) protocols rely on the strong interactions between low-intensity sound waves and brain tissue to transiently modulate brain states and neural activity non-invasively, reversibly and with high spatial precision. Through a series of experiments, I will discuss how TUS can focus sound waves on small regions deep within the brain without affecting the overlying cortex, achieving results that, until now, are possible only with surgically implanted electrodes and invasive procedures