Deep Brain Stimulation Without Surgery

Using interfering high-frequency currents applied to the surface of the mouse skull, scientists can noninvasively target brain regions buried below the cortical surface.

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C-fos stained hippocampus following temporal interference stimulation

TSAI AND BOYDEN LABS

Deep brain stimulation can improve debilitating, treatment-resistant brain disorders but involves surgically implanting electrodes that often have to penetrate multiple layers of tissue before reaching their targets. In a mouse study published today (June 1) in the journal Cell, researchers devised a nonsurgical method in mice for stimulating regions buried beneath the brain’s cortex without perturbing the surrounding tissue.

“I just find the whole nature of it amazingly elegant,” says Helen Mayberg, a professor and neurologist at Emory University who was not involved in this work. “From the vantage point of deep brain stimulation, I look at this and say, how do we get from what I do to what they do?”

Doctors have shown deep brain stimulation can improve Parkinson’s disease, depression, and severe cases of obsessive-compulsive disorder in some patients and has ...

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