Ultrasound pulse repetition frequency preferentially activates different neuron populations independent of cell type.

Transcranial ultrasound activates mechanosensitive cellular signaling and modulates neural dynamics. Given that intrinsic neuronal activity is limited to a couple hundred hertz and often exhibits frequency preference, we examined whether pulsing ultrasound at physiologic pulse repetition frequencies (PRFs) could selectively influence neuronal activity in the mammalian brain. We performed calcium imaging of individual motor cortex neurons, while delivering 0.35 MHz ultrasound at PRFs of 10, 40, and 140 Hz in awake mice. We found that most neurons were preferentially activated by only one of the three PRFs, highlighting unique cellular effects of physiologic PRFs. Further, ultrasound evoked responses were similar between excitatory neurons and parvalbumin positive interneurons regardless of PRFs, indicating that individual cell sensitivity dominates ultrasound-evoked effects, consistent with the heterogeneous mechanosensitive channel expression we found across single neurons in mice and humans. These results highlight the feasibility of tuning ultrasound neuromodulation effects through varying PRFs.

Large-scale voltage imaging in behaving mice using targeted illumination.

Recent improvements in genetically encoded voltage indicators enabled optical imaging of action potentials and subthreshold transmembrane voltage in vivo. To perform high-speed voltage imaging of many neurons simultaneously over a large anatomical area, widefield microscopy remains an essential tool. However, the lack of optical sectioning makes widefield microscopy prone to background cross-contamination. We implemented a digital-micromirror-device-based targeted illumination strategy to restrict illumination to the cells of interest and quantified the resulting improvement both theoretically and experimentally with SomArchon expressing neurons. We found that targeted illumination increased SomArchon signal contrast, decreased photobleaching, and reduced background cross-contamination. With the use of a high-speed, large-area sCMOS camera, we routinely imaged tens of spiking neurons simultaneously over minutes in behaving mice. Thus, the targeted illumination strategy described here offers a simple solution for widefield voltage imaging of many neurons over a large field of view in behaving animals.

Region-specific effects of ultrasound on individual neurons in the awake mammalian brain.

Ultrasound modulates brain activity. However, it remains unclear how ultrasound affects individual neurons in the brain, where neural circuit architecture is intact and different brain regions exhibit distinct tissue properties. Using a high-resolution calcium imaging technique, we characterized the effect of ultrasound stimulation on thousands of individual neurons in the hippocampus and the motor cortex of awake mice. We found that brief 100-ms-long ultrasound pulses increase intracellular calcium in a large fraction of individual neurons in both brain regions. Ultrasound-evoked calcium response in hippocampal neurons exhibits a rapid onset with a latency shorter than 50 ms. The evoked response in the hippocampus is shorter in duration and smaller in magnitude than that in the motor cortex. These results demonstrate that noninvasive ultrasound stimulation transiently increases intracellular calcium in individual neurons in awake mice, and the evoked response profiles are brain region specific.

Tongue-based biofeedback for balance in stroke: results of an 8-week pilot study.

OBJECTIVE: To assess balance recovery and quality of life after tongue-placed electrotactile biofeedback training in patients with stroke. DESIGN: Prospective multicenter research design. SETTING: Outpatient rehabilitation clinics. PARTICIPANTS: Patients (N=29) with chronic stroke. INTERVENTIONS: Patients were administered 1 week of therapy plus 7 weeks of home exercise using a novel tongue based biofeedback balance device. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The Berg Balance Scale (BBS), Timed Up and Go (TUG), Activities-Specific Balance Confidence (ABC) Scale, Dynamic Gait Index (DGI), and Stroke Impact Scale (SIS) were performed before and after the intervention on all subjects. RESULTS: There were statistically and clinically significant improvements from baseline to posttest in results for the BBS, DGI, TUG, ABC Scale, and some SIS domains (Mobility, Activities of Daily Living/Instrumental Activities of Daily Living, Social, Physical, Recovery domains). Average BBS score increased from 35.9 to 41.6 (P<.001), and DGI score, from 11.1 to 13.7 (P<.001). Time to complete the TUG decreased from 24.7 to 20.7 seconds (P=.002). Including the BBS, DGI, TUG, and ABC Scale, 27 subjects improved beyond the minimal detectable change with 95% certainty (MDC-95) or minimal clinically important difference (MCID) in at least 1 outcome and 3 subjects improved beyond the MDC-95 or MCID in all outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: Electrotactile biofeedback seems to be a promising integrative method to balance training. A future randomized controlled study is needed.

Longitudinal changes in patients with traumatic brain injury assessed with diffusion-tensor and volumetric imaging.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is associated with brain volume loss, but there is little information on the regional gray matter (GM) and white matter (WM) changes that contribute to overall loss. Since axonal injury is a common occurrence in TBI, imaging methods that are sensitive to WM damage such as diffusion-tensor imaging (DTI) may be useful for characterizing microstructural brain injury contributing to regional WM loss in TBI. High-resolution T1-weighted imaging and DTI were used to evaluate regional changes in TBI patients compared to matched controls. Patients received neuropsychological testing and were imaged approximately 2 months and 12.7 months post-injury. Paradoxically, neuropsychological function improved from Visit 1 to Visit 2, while voxel-based analyses of fractional anisotropy (FA), and mean diffusivity (MD) from the DTI images, and voxel-based analyses of the GM and WM probability maps from the T1-weighted images, mainly revealed significantly greater deleterious GM and WM change over time in patients compared to controls. Cross-sectional comparisons of the DTI measures indicated that patients have decreased FA and increased MD compared to controls over large regions of the brain. TBI affected virtually all of the major fiber bundles in the brain including the corpus callosum, cingulum, the superior and inferior longitudinal fascicules, the uncinate fasciculus, and brain stem fiber tracts. The results indicate that both GM and WM degeneration are significant contributors to brain volume loss in the months following brain injury, and also suggest that DTI measures may be more useful than high-resolution anatomical images in assessment of group differences.