By The Brain and Behavior Research Foundation

A research team led by 2018 BBRF Young Investigator Canan Dağdeviren, Ph.D., of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, reports in Nature Communications that it has designed, developed, and successfully tested a tiny, implantable neurostimulation device that uses ultrasound to modify the activity of neurons deep in the brain.

Although still very much an experimental device, their neural stimulator, called ImPULS, in the team’s view has promise to become “a potent neuromodulatory tool” for therapeutic applications in people in illnesses ranging from major depression to Alzheimer’s. It may also prove useful in basic research on the brain.

ImPULS stands for “implantable piezoelectric ultrasound stimulator.” Ultrasound consists of sound waves that vibrate at greater than 20,000 cycles per second (20 kHz), a frequency that is very close to the upper limit of human detection. Many animals can hear in ultrasound wavelengths—from dogs and cats at the lower end to dolphins at the higher end. Ultrasonic waves with much higher frequencies are used for a wide range of medical applications, perhaps the most familiar being the visualization of the human fetus during pregnancy.