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. 2024 Sep-Oct;17(5):1001-1004.
doi: 10.1016/j.brs.2024.08.006. Epub 2024 Aug 22.

Thalamic transcranial ultrasound stimulation in treatment resistant depression

Joline M Fan  1 , Kai Woodworth  2 , Keith R Murphy  3 , Leighton Hinkley  4 , Joshua L Cohen  2 , Joanne Yoshimura  2 , Inhauck Choi  2 , Alexandra G Tremblay-McGaw  2 , Joncarmen Mergenthaler  2 , Cameron H Good  3 , Peter A Pellionisz  2 , A Moses Lee  2 , Tommaso Di Ianni  5 , Leo P Sugrue  5 , Andrew D Krystal  6
Affiliations

Thalamic transcranial ultrasound stimulation in treatment resistant depression

Joline M Fan et al. Brain Stimul. 2024 Sep-Oct.
No abstract available

Keywords: Anterior nucleus of the thalamus; Default mode network; Dorsomedial thalamus; Low intensity focused ultrasound; Transcranial ultrasound stimulation; Ventral capsule.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: K.R.M, C.H.G., and T.D.I. have equity/stock options and have received salary and/or consulting fees from Attune Neurosciences, Inc. J.L.C. has equity/stock options and receives salary from Options MD.

Figures

Fig. 1.
Fig. 1.. ANT stimulation reduces VAS depression and suppresses default mode network connectivity.
A) Depiction of three phase experimental design. TUS study device illustrated in inset. B) Simulated field of TUS crossbeam intensities overlaid on a sagittal and coronal cross-section of T1-weighted MRI coronal for the right-lateralized VC (top row; outlined in white), ANT (middle row; outlined in red), and unfocused (bottom row) conditions. Note that the VC and ANT masks are non-overlapping; the mask of each of the other active condition is not seen in the respective cross-section. C, E) Trajectories of VAS depression and HAMD-6 over time grouped according to each replicate stimulation condition: VC/BNST (left), ANT (middle), and unfocused (right). The color codes represent each day of testing an individual condition. The x-axis represents session time, where the start of each visit equates time 0. The y-axis represents the change in symptom scores over a stimulation session from the pre-stimulation survey for any given day. Each point represents a survey assessment taken during the span of the stimulation protocol. Survey assessments were taken immediately following each 5 min stimulation pulse train and after each 10 min inter pulse train interval. D, F) Averaged change in VAS depression and HAMD-6 score per hour for each condition: VC/BNST (left) and ANT (right). The unfocused stimulation condition is given by the dotted grey line. The ANT stimulation condition statistically reduced the averaged VAS depression per time, as compared to the unfocused control (p = 0.0127; one sample t-test). G) Visualization of DMN connectivity based on a medial prefrontal cortex seed; ANT stimulation reduces DMN connectivity as compared to the baseline and unfocused conditions (Fisher-transformed correlation coefficient units). H) Normalized probability density function of anterior-posterior DMN connectivity in a group of healthy controls (grey histogram bars) and an overlaid black normal distribution curve. Colored bars indicate the DMN connectivity of baseline/pre-stimulation (green), ANT (orange), and unfocused (purple) conditions. Note that unfocused condition occurred the following day, i.e. 24-hrs, after ANT stimulation; the extent to which washout of stimulation had occurred remains unknown. Abbreviations: ventral capsule (VC); bed nucleus of stria terminalis (BNST); anterior nucleus of the thalamus (ANT); visual analog scale (VAS); Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD); medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC); posterior cingulate cortex (PCC).
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References

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