Transcranial focused ultrasound modulates the activity of primary somatosensory cortex in humans

Another possibility for our researchers to address.
A blogger writing about it here;

Is Ultrasonic Brain Stimulation The Future?

The abstract it is based upon here;  

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24413698

Legon W¹, Sato TF¹, Opitz A², Mueller J³, Barbour A¹, Williams A¹, Tyler WJ⁴.

Author information

• ¹Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Roanoke, Virginia, USA.
• ²1] Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Roanoke, Virginia, USA. [2] Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Georg-August-University, Göttingen, Germany.
• ³School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.
• ⁴1] Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, Roanoke, Virginia, USA. [2] School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. [3] Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Roanoke, Virginia, USA.

Abstract

Improved methods of noninvasively modulating human brain function are needed. Here we probed the influence of transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) targeted to the human primary somatosensory cortex (S1) on sensory-evoked brain activity and sensory discrimination abilities. The lateral and axial spatial resolution of the tFUS beam implemented were 4.9 mm and 18 mm, respectively. Electroencephalographic recordings showed that tFUS significantly attenuated the amplitudes of somatosensory evoked potentials elicited by median nerve stimulation. We also found that tFUS significantly modulated the spectral content of sensory-evoked brain oscillations. The changes produced by tFUS on sensory-evoked brain activity were abolished when the acoustic beam was focused 1 cm anterior or posterior to S1. Behavioral investigations showed that tFUS targeted to S1 enhanced performance on sensory discrimination tasks without affecting task attention or response bias. We conclude that tFUS can be used to focally modulate human cortical function.

To even have any idea that this might work for survivors would require an objective diagnosis of damaged vs. dead areas in the somatosensory cortex.