Noninvasive, drug-free therapy for brain disorders
We have developed a device, called DIADEM, for noninvasive deep brain therapies with ultrasonic waves.
DIADEM has been effectively and safely applied in patients with
• Chronic pain
• Major depression
DIADEM is also beginning to be evaluated in patients with
• PTSD
• Alzheimer's disease
Additional research
Remote control of neuronal activity
We are developing technology to treat deep brain regions involved in patient-specific disease symptoms. We use ultrasound, which modulates neural activity and can be non-invasively focused into specific deep brain regions.
Our research in non-human primates has demonstrated ultrasound's capacity to modulate awake behavior.
Ongoing research explores safe protocols for durable treatments of deep brain circuits.
Remotely-controlled drug release at a specific target
The ability to deliver a drug selectively at a specific location within the brain or the body would revolutionize medicine.
We use ultrasound to release drugs from ultrasound-sensitive nanoparticle carriers.
We optimize the effectiveness and safety of the approach in non-human primates.
This work will enable us to move beyond prescribing systemic drugs by specifically modulating the aberrant neural circuit in a given individual.
At the basic science level, the ability to modulate (and in particular, suppress) neural circuits noninvasively and thereby systematically will lead to new, causal studies of how individual brain circuits are involved in specific behaviors in humans.