Focused Ultrasound Neurostimulation of the Dorsal Root Ganglion for Neuropathic Pain Therapeutics

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Project Summary Neuropathic pain can severely debilitate and lower individual quality of life, leading to more clinical visits and an increased dependence on opioids for pain management. The dorsal root ganglion has been shown to be an effective therapeutic target due to its T-junction filtering yet alternatives to pharmacology have large drawbacks in invasiveness, locality, and effectiveness. Focused ultrasound is a unique noninvasive and spatially focused neuromodulation modality, poised to transform current neuropathic pain therapeutic paradigms. However, application of focused ultrasound for pain treatment is limited by the lack of tools for investigation ex vivo and in vivo. In this proposal, I will develop new ex vivo and in vivo tools to study the application of focused ultrasound to the dorsal root ganglion for improving neuropathic pain conditions. Specifically, I will engineer a new protocol for dissecting and recording central afferents past the DRG and measure T-junction filtering under optimal FUS sonication parameters (Aim 1). I will then establish an in vivo experimental setup to determine whether FUS sonication to the dorsal root ganglion can improve neuropathic pain behaviors in awake-behaving mice (Aim 2). The proposed work will generate novel in vivo and ex vivo tools for exploration of focused ultrasound treatment of neuropathic pain and facilitate clinical translation.