Non-Invasive Hybrid Ultrasound Stimulation of Visual Cortex In Vivo - PubMed (original) (raw)

doi: 10.3390/bioengineering10050577.

Runze Li 1 2, Gengxi Lu 1 2, Jie Ji 1, Yushun Zeng 1, Jiawen Chen 3, Chifeng Chang 1 2, Junhang Zhang 1 2, Lily Xia 1, Deepthi S Rajendran Nair 2, Biju B Thomas 2, Brian J Song 2, Mark S Humayun 1 2, Qifa Zhou 1 2

Affiliations

Non-Invasive Hybrid Ultrasound Stimulation of Visual Cortex In Vivo

Chen Gong et al. Bioengineering (Basel). 2023.

Abstract

The optic nerve is the second cranial nerve (CN II) that connects and transmits visual information between the retina and the brain. Severe damage to the optic nerve often leads to distorted vision, vision loss, and even blindness. Such damage can be caused by various types of degenerative diseases, such as glaucoma and traumatic optic neuropathy, and result in an impaired visual pathway. To date, researchers have not found a viable therapeutic method to restore the impaired visual pathway; however, in this paper, a newly synthesized model is proposed to bypass the damaged portion of the visual pathway and set up a direct connection between a stimulated visual input and the visual cortex (VC) using Low-frequency Ring-transducer Ultrasound Stimulation (LRUS). In this study, by utilizing and integrating various advanced ultrasonic and neurological technologies, the following advantages are achieved by the proposed LRUS model: 1. This is a non-invasive procedure that uses enhanced sound field intensity to overcome the loss of ultrasound signal due to the blockage of the skull. 2. The simulated visual signal generated by LRUS in the visual-cortex-elicited neuronal response in the visual cortex is comparable to light stimulation of the retina. The result was confirmed by a combination of real-time electrophysiology and fiber photometry. 3. VC showed a faster response rate under LRUS than light stimulation through the retina. These results suggest a potential non-invasive therapeutic method for restoring vision in optic-nerve-impaired patients using ultrasound stimulation (US).

Keywords: electrophysiology; non-invasive; optic nerve damage; photometry; ultrasound stimulation; vision restoration; visual cortex.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

A figure of the 3.6 MHz ring transducer with the collimator and the hydrophone system setup.

Figure 2

Figure 2

The system setup of electrophysiological signal and fiber. (a) The frontal aspect of the ring transducer; (b) the posterior aspect of the ring transducer; (c) the lateral aspect of the ring transducer.

Figure 3

Figure 3

The results of the pressure distribution simulation performed using FIELD II. The pressure field was measured in two planes, the YZ Plane (a) and the C Plane (b), without the presence of the skull. To investigate the impact of the rat skull on the pressure distribution, 1D-scan measurements were performed using a hydrophone both with and without the skull (c).

Figure 4

Figure 4

(A) The whole device placed in water (control experiment), (B) light stimulation (the arrows and blue line show the stimulation time), and there were some spikes after 30 ms, (C) 30 ms ultrasound stimulation on the visual cortex (the arrow indicates the position of the initial pulse), (D) the 60 ms ultrasound stimulus.

Figure 5

Figure 5

Results of ultrasound-stimulated fiber-optic calcium imaging of rat visual cortex. The red line represents the change in ΔF/F for light stimulation, and the blue line represents ultrasound stimulation. (A) The 12-times stimulation results of ΔF/F for flashlight stimulation; (B) the 12-times stimulation results of ΔF/F for US stimulation.

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