Future Prospects of Ultrasound: Role of Low-Intensity Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation in the Treatment of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders.

backgroundNeurological and psychiatric disorders pose a persistent global health burden, with conventional therapies often providing inadequate relief. Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) has attracted considerable attention as a non-invasive neuromodulation technique offering high spatial resolution and the distinctive capacity to modulate deep brain regions.

methodsThis review synthesizes recent basic and clinical research on TUS across neurological and psychiatric disorders, and consolidates emerging evidence on its mechanisms, therapeutic applications, and safety considerations.

resultsEmerging evidence suggests that TUS may drive sustained neural remodeling-including synaptic plasticity, neurogenesis, and anti-neuroinflammatory effects-raising the possibility that TUS could eventually contribute to disease-modifying strategies. However, disease modification by TUS has not yet been demonstrated in humans; the evidence supporting this possibility is derived predominantly from preclinical studies and remains a hypothesis requiring confirmation in large-scale, controlled clinical trials. Building on these frameworks, we further propose a working hypothesis-termed mechanotransduction-to-oscillation encoding-which posits a nonlinear encoding relationship between the pulse repetition frequency of TUS and the intrinsic oscillatory properties of the stimulated region.

conclusionThis hypothesis remains largely speculative and is offered as a conceptual framework to generate testable predictions and guide future investigations. Together, these frameworks provide a cohesive strategy for advancing TUS from an exploratory neuromodulation technique toward a potentially clinically translatable precision intervention, while acknowledging that significant technical and clinical hurdles remain.