Neuromodulation with single-element transcranial focused ultrasound in human thalamus

Transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) has proven capable of stimulating cortical tissue in humans. tFUS confers high spatial resolutions with deep focal lengths and as such, has the potential to noninvasively modulate neural targets deep to the cortex in humans. We test the ability of single-element tFUS to noninvasively modulate unilateral thalamus in humans. Participants (N = 40) underwent either tFUS or sham neuromodulation targeted at the unilateral sensory thalamus that contains the ventro-posterior lateral (VPL) nucleus of thalamus. Somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) were recorded from scalp electrodes contralateral to median nerve stimulation. Activity of the unilateral sensory thalamus was indexed by the P14 SEP generated in the VPL nucleus and cortical somatosensory activity by subsequent inflexions of the SEP and through time/frequency analysis. Participants also under went tactile behavioral assessment during either the tFUS or sham condition in a separate experiment. A detailed acoustic model using computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is also presented to assess the effect of individual skull morphology for single-element deep brain neuromodulation in humans. tFUS targeted at unilateral sensory thalamus inhibited the amplitude of the P14 SEP as compared to sham. There is evidence of translation of this effect to time windows of the EEG commensurate with SI and SII activities. These results were accompanied by alpha and beta power attenuation as well as time-locked gamma power inhibition. Furthermore, participants performed significantly worse than chance on a discrimination task during tFUS stimulation.