Precision Medicine for Brain Circuit Modulation: Dr. Andrew Krystal being forced to move his hand and then just a thumb by pulses of magnetism to the cortex (TMS, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation).
50% of people don’t respond to TMS, perhaps because it has not been tailored to their brain network. And TMS can’t penetrate deep into the brain. For that, tFUS (franscranial focused ultrasound stimulation) is the most promising non-invasive therapy being tested. It can change the behavior of brain cells in a precise area (I think this comes from opening ion channels in the neuron’s cell membrane) and can sequence locations over time, a unique modality.
Two other precision drug-delivery modes:
1) Relaxing the blood-brain-barrier in a particular area (e.g., delivering ketamine preferentially to the hippocampus).
2) Opening inert spheres that encapsulate a drug just in a targeted brain region
Their conclusion: tFUS is the most promising treatment modality today.
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