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A Soft Housing Needle Ultrasonic Transducer for Focal Stimulation to Small Animal Brain

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Abstract

Conventional acoustic brain stimulators that transmit low frequency (< 1 MHz) bursts in a pulse repetition frequency with large-sized transducers are barely compatible with small animal models because of broad beam width, possible stimulation of auditory pathways, and blocking of field-of-view for in vivo imaging of brain hemodynamics and neuronal activities. A miniaturized ultrasound stimulator with higher stimulation frequencies will enhance spatial specificity and enable simultaneous eliciting and monitoring brain activities. Moreover, the use of non-periodic pulse sequences may reduce unintended stimulations on auditory cortex, which might be caused by transmitting periodic bursting patterns. A platform for ultrasound brain stimulations for small animal models, including a soft housing 10 MHz needle transducer with a beam size of 680 μm, random transmission sequences, and optical imaging systems, was developed. The platform can deliver focal stimulations to the visual and barrel cortex of mice and monitor subsequent brain activities. The stimulated sites in both the visual and primary somatosensory cortices (S1) showed approximately two to three times higher neuronal calcium signal levels than those in peripheral regions. Activities in the auditory cortex were elicited by periodic sequence stimulation, while it was reduced by 67 and 35% for barrel and visual cortex stimulation with the random sequence, respectively.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Korea Government (MIST) under Grant No. NRF-2017R1C1B2003709 and partially by IBS-R001-D1. This research was also partially supported by Convergent Technology R&D Program for Human Augmentation through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (NRF-2019M3C1B8090805).

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Correspondence to Minah Suh or Jinhyoung Park.

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Associate Editor Ka-Wai Kwok oversaw the review of this article.

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Choi, T., Bae, S., Suh, M. et al. A Soft Housing Needle Ultrasonic Transducer for Focal Stimulation to Small Animal Brain. Ann Biomed Eng 48, 1157–1168 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-019-02431-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10439-019-02431-w

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