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Review
. 2023;55(2):2251145.
doi: 10.1080/07853890.2023.2251145.

Low intensity focused ultrasound: a new prospect for the treatment of Parkinson's disease

Yun-Xiao Zhong  1 , Jin-Chi Liao  1 , Xv Liu  1 , Hao Tian  1 , Li-Ren Deng  1 , Ling Long  1
Affiliations
Review

Low intensity focused ultrasound: a new prospect for the treatment of Parkinson's disease

Yun-Xiao Zhong et al. Ann Med. 2023.

Abstract

Background: As a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson's disease (PD) still lacks effective and safe targeted drug therapy. Low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU), a new method to stimulate the brain and open the blood-brain barrier (BBB), has been widely concerned by PD researchers due to its non-invasive characteristics.Methods: PubMed was searched for the past 10 years using the terms 'focused ultrasound', 'transcranial ultrasound', 'pulse ultrasound', and 'Parkinson's disease'. Relevant citations were selected from the authors' references. After excluding articles describing high-intensity focused ultrasound or non-Parkinson's disease applications, we found more than 100 full-text analyses for pooled analysis.Results: Current preclinical studies have shown that LIFU could improve PD motor symptoms by regulating microglia activation, increasing neurotrophic factors, reducing oxidative stress, and promoting nerve repair and regeneration, while LIFU combined with microbubbles (MBs) can promote drugs to cross the BBB, which may become a new direction of PD treatment. Therefore, finding an efficient drug carrier system is the top priority of applying LIFU with MBs to deliver drugs.Conclusions: This article aims to review neuro-modulatory effect of LIFU and the possible biophysical mechanism in the treatment of PD, summarize the latest progress in delivering vehicles with MBs, and discuss its advantages and limitations.

Keywords: Parkinson’s disease; low intensity pulsed ultrasound; low-intensity focused ultrasound; mechanism; microbubbles.

Plain language summary

Neuro-modulatory effects of LIFU at the cellular or molecular level.Opening the BBB through the combination of LIFU and MBs.Biophysical mechanism of LIFU.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
The strategy and effect of low intensity focused ultrasound in the treatment of PD. 1. LIFU combined with MBs opens the BBB. 2. LIFU acts on specific parts of the mice brain, such as the motor cortex, substantia nigra, striatum and other specific sites. 3. Microvesicles or nanoparticles deliver relevant genes or therapeutic drugs such as polymeric nanoparticle, dendrimer, nanogel, magnetic nanoparticle, viral-based nanoparticle, micelle and liposome. 4. Therapeutic substances typically pass through an open BBB in two ways: the paracellular route and the transcellular route.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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