Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40340797›Full record

ArticleThe Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience2025

Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Modulates Feedforward and Feedback Cortico-Thalamo-Cortical Pathways by Selectively Activating Excitatory Neurons.

Huan Gao, Sandhya Ramachandran, Kai Yu, Bin He

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
12citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

12 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Review
  2. Article
  3. Article
  4. Article
  5. Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Enhances the Discriminative Power of Targeted Voluntary Motor Signals in Humans.IEEE transactions on neural systems and rehabilitation engineering : a publication of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society · 2026
    Article
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  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Review
  10. Review
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Huan GaoDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.
Sandhya RamachandranDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.
Kai YuDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213.
Bin HeDepartment of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 bhe1@andrew.cmu.edu.ORCID 0000-0003-2944-8602

Funding

Electrophysiology-Compatible Wearable Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation Array ProbesRF1NS131069 · NINDS · CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY · PI HE, BIN · 2023 to 2023
$3.6M
Treating pain in sickle cell disease by means of focused ultrasound neuromodulationU18EB029354 · NIBIB · CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY · PI HE, BIN · 2019 to 2019
$2.0M
Characterization of in vivo neuronal and inter-neuronal responses to transcranial focused ultrasoundR01NS124564 · NINDS · CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY · PI HE, BIN · 2021 to 2021
$2.0M
Characterization of in vivo neuronal and inter-neuronal responses to transcranial focused ultrasoundRF1NS124564 · NINDS · CARNEGIE-MELLON UNIVERSITY · PI HE, BIN · 2025 to 2025
$571k
NIBIB NIH HHS U18 EB029354NINDS NIH HHS R01 NS124564NINDS NIH HHS RF1 NS124564NINDS NIH HHS RF1 NS131069
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation (tFUS) is a promising neuromodulation technique capable of noninvasively modulating focal neuronal activities and neural circuits in both animals and humans. The cell-type selectivity of tFUS within targeted areas such as the somatosensory cortex (S1) during sonication has been shown to be parameter related. However, it remains unclear how tFUS affects neural circuits by changing the correlation between neurons and how to optimize the tFUS parameters to modulate neural pathways. In this study, multisite intracranial recordings are used in anesthetized male rats to quantify the neuronal responses to tFUS stimulation recorded from S1 and posterior medial thalamic nucleus (POm) of cortico-thalamo-cortical (CTC) pathway. Different tFUS parameters including ranges of pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs) and duty cycles (DCs) are tested. We find that when targeting at S1, only regular-spiking units (RSUs) respond to specific tFUS parameters during sonication (DC, 6-60%; PRF, 1,500, 3,000 and 4,500 Hz), and RSUs from the POm exhibit a synchronized response. The changes of directional correlation between S1 RSUs and POm RSUs indicate the activation of feedback modulation. Delayed responses and correlation changes were further observed at ∼200 ms postsonication from the neurons in S1 and POm, indicating feedforward modulation. Our results reveal that tFUS can modulate the feedback and feedforward CTC pathways by selectively activating cortical RSUs and adjusting the tFUS parameters, particularly the PRF, to maximize cortical RSU activity could enhance the modulation of the CTC pathway.

Indexed as

Cerebral CortexFeedback, PhysiologicalNeuronsSomatosensory CortexThalamusAction PotentialsAnimalsMaleNeural PathwaysRatsRats, Sprague-Dawleycell-type selectivityfeedback and feedforward cortico-thalamo-cortical pathwayslow-intensity focused ultrasound stimulationneuromodulationtime-locked and delayed responses

Identifiers

PMID40340797
PMCPMC12139594

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.