On: Functional ultrasound through the skull

[yoble]

Nice timing, tomorrow I'll be participating in a study doing transcranial ultrasonic neuro-modulation, meaning using ultrasound not just to map brain activity but to influence it (the point of the study is inhibiting the Default Mode Network).

If anyone's interested I found those two paper really interesting:

- Aubry et al 2023[1], on potential risks and limitions of using focused ultrasound in the brain (tldr we don't know but have conservative estimates. Really interesting for me to see that HN article adding to that)

- Lord et al 2024[2], a first study on using Transcranial Focused Ultrasound to modulate the DMN and subjective experience

[1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2311.05359

[2] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/381488518_Transcran...

[womack → yoble]

I am a physician who has been following tfus for sometime now - Specifically, it’s ability to create persistent alterations in consciousness/Perception/Cognition- Similar to those found in long-term meditators. My understanding is that there are a few people in the world that can safely do this currently. If you feel comfortable sharing, it would be lovely to hear more details :)

[yoble → womack]

For sure, though I'll probably have more info after the study.

It's done by the same people as the second paper I linked, on people attending a 10-day silent meditation retreat. My understanding so far is that the participants will be "zapped" a couple of time over the 10 days, to explore exactly what you describe ie alterations of consciousness similar to what's found in long term meditators on retreat, except induced on people who are already on retreat instead of people who'll have to go back to work afterwards.

I'll have more to report in a couple weeks time!

(If you'd like to share, I'm also curious as to what interests you in that field of study)