Remotely induced electrical modulation of deep brain circuits in non-human primates

Introduction: The combination of magnetic and focused ultrasonic fields generates focused electric fields at depth entirely noninvasively. This noninvasive method may find particularly important applications in targeted treatments of the deep brain circuits involved in mental and neurological disorders. Due to the novelty of this method, it is nonetheless unknown which parameters modulate neural activity effectively.

Methods: We have investigated this issue by applying the combination of magnetic and focused ultrasonic fields to deep brain visual circuits in two non-human primates, quantifying the electroencephalographic gamma activity evoked in the visual cortex. We hypothesized that the pulse repetition frequency of the ultrasonic stimulation should be a key factor in modulating the responses, predicting that lower frequencies should elicit inhibitory effects and higher frequencies excitatory effects.

Results: We replicated the results of a previous study, finding an inhibition of the evoked gamma responses by a strong magnetic field. This inhibition was only observed for the lowest frequency tested (5 Hz), and not for the higher frequencies (10 kHz and 50 kHz). These neuromodulatory effects were transient and no safety issues were noted.

Discussion: We conclude that this new method can be used to transiently inhibit evoked neural activity in deep brain regions of primates, and that delivering the ultrasonic pulses at low pulse repetition frequencies maximizes the effect.