Wouldn't it be cool to be able to stimulate deep within the brain without the need for brain surgery (i.e. DBS), and without actually making a physical lesion in the brain (i.e. focused ultrasound or pallidotomy)? This paper provides 'proof of concept' that a transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) approach may be achievable. Darmani, Chen and colleagues bring us up to speed in Nature Communications. Key Points: - The authors provide an interesting study that examined TUS-induced changes in 10 individuals w/ Parkinson’s and dystonia. - There were also 15 healthy controls. - Physiology and local field potentials were sampled from deep brain stimulation leads w/in the globus pallidus. - Theta burst TUS increased theta power during DBS. - The authors showed 10 Hz TUS enhanced beta power and the effect persisted for ~40 min. - Interestingly, the GPi TUS actually prolonged stop-signal reaction times. There was also impaired response inhibition. My take: What was interesting was that transcranial ultrasound was able to engage a common target (GPi) used for DBS surgery and focused ultrasound. We all remain 'deeply' interested in noninvasive deep brain stimulation as this could open the door for a safer and potentially (one day) a more practical approach for stimulating from 'outside the brain.' The field has a ways to go, but this is a nice early step. It is critically important that the authors were able to show us that TUS was able to 'modulate neural circuits in a spatially precise manner.' We must – respice finem – consider the outcome, when developing the less invasive methods of brain stimulation. I don't think we should be too disappointed with the early results, as this road will be a long but worthwhile journey. nature.com/articles/s41467-0… #parkinson #deepbrainstimulation #focusedultrasound @ParkinsonDotOrg @FixelInstitute @Nature @NatureComms @DBSThinkTank