Beyond drugs: Non-invasive focused ultrasound brain stimulation as a novel intervention for mental health

超越药物：非侵入性聚焦超声脑刺激作为心理健康的新型干预措施

• 批准号: EP/W004488/1
• 负责人: Marcus Kaiser
• 金额: $ 40.49万
• 依托单位: University of Nottingham
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2021 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FW004488%2F1
• 关键词: Beyond; drugs; Non; invasive; focused

Drugs are horrible. While many psychiatric and neurological conditions are treated with pharmaceutical drugs, side effects remain severe. As one sufferer of epilepsy commented: "If the side effects of anti-epileptic drugs would be considered on their own, they would be an own disease category". Drugs, once passing through the blood-brain-barrier, affect the entire brain and its effect is not just limited to the regions that are linked to brain network disorders. Even worse, often the drugs don't work. For a third of epilepsy patients, drugs are ineffective in reducing the number of seizures, and for diseases such as dementia, there are no drugs with obvious benefits in humans. This situation is unlikely to improve as, for example, dementia clinical trials have failed, and more and more pharmaceutical companies are quitting brain disorder drug development altogether.Brain stimulation of distinct regions of the brain offers a potential route to new treatments. However, the effects are often inconsistent between patients and, in particular for older subjects, invasive approaches using implants are seen as risky by clinicians. Therefore, for neuromodulation to replace drugs in the future, interventions need to be personalised and non-invasive. The solution to replace pharmaceutical drugs for many brain disorders before 2050 is the proposed development of an approach that is (a) non-invasive through using focused ultrasound stimulation and (b) personalised through using computer models to predict which network nodes or edges should be targeted and which stimulation protocol should be used.Enabled by this proof of concept, computer simulations can test thousands of different stimulation approaches before deciding on an optimal approach for an individual patient. This is crucial, as trial-and-error in human patients is not an option. For deep-brain stimulation in Parkinson's disease, the fine-tuning of the stimulation algorithm for each patient takes several weeks. Whereas this is tuning the protocol alone, the situation will be more challenging when also the target structure needs to be determined. Phase 1 will show whether predicting stimulation outcomes is feasible and will therefore de-risk the healthcare implementation in phase 2.

毒品太可怕了。虽然许多精神和神经疾病是用药物治疗的，但副作用仍然很严重。正如一位癫痫患者所评论的那样：“如果单独考虑抗癫痫药物的副作用，它们将成为一个单独的疾病类别”。药物一旦穿过血脑屏障，就会影响整个大脑，其影响不仅限于与脑网络疾病有关的区域。更糟糕的是，药物往往不起作用。对于三分之一的癫痫患者来说，药物在减少癫痫发作次数方面无效，对于痴呆症等疾病，目前还没有对人类有明显益处的药物。这种情况不太可能改善，例如，痴呆症的临床试验失败了，越来越多的制药公司完全放弃了大脑疾病药物的开发，大脑不同区域的大脑刺激提供了一种潜在的新治疗方法。然而，患者之间的效果往往不一致，特别是对于老年受试者，临床医生认为使用植入物的侵入性方法具有风险。因此，为了使神经调节在未来取代药物，干预措施需要个性化和非侵入性。在2050年之前取代许多脑部疾病的药物的解决方案是提出开发一种方法，该方法是（a）通过使用聚焦超声刺激的非侵入性的，以及（B）通过使用计算机模型来预测应该靶向哪些网络节点或边缘以及应该使用哪种刺激协议来个性化的。计算机模拟可以在决定用于个体患者的最佳方法之前测试数千种不同的刺激方法。这是至关重要的，因为在人类患者中试错不是一种选择。对于帕金森病的脑深部电刺激，对每个患者的刺激算法进行微调需要几周时间。虽然这是单独调整协议，但当还需要确定目标结构时，情况将更具挑战性。第1阶段将显示预测刺激结局是否可行，因此将降低第2阶段医疗保健实施的风险。

项目成果

Nonoptimal component placement of the human connectome supports variable brain dynamics.

• DOI: 10.1162/netn_a_00282
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: NETWORK NEUROSCIENCE
• 影响因子: 4.7
• 作者: Hayward, Christopher James;Huo, Siyu;Chen, Xue;Kaiser, Marcus
• 通讯作者: Kaiser, Marcus

Extended Temporal Dynamics of Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation in the Primate Brain

灵长类动物大脑经颅超声刺激的扩展时间动力学

• DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.4653169
• 发表时间: 2023
• 作者: Atkinson-Clement C

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation effect in the redundant and synergistic networks consistent across macaques

冗余和协同网络中的经颅超声刺激效果在猕猴中一致

• DOI: 10.1101/2023.11.02.564776
• 发表时间: 2023
• 作者: Gatica M