Low-Intensity Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation Modulates the Excitability of Motor Cortical Neural Activity by Stimulating the Cerebellum
Huifang Yang, Zhe Zhao, Renhao Xu, Jiamin Pei, Jiaqing Yan, Xiangjian Zhang, Hanna Lu, Yi Yuan
IEEE Transactions on Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering 2025 · 10.1109/tnsre.2025.3601110
Abstract
Functional connectivity between the cerebellum and the motor cortex is critical for motor function. Low-intensity transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) has been proved to directly activate cerebellar neural activity. However, whether and how TUS of the cerebellum modulates neural activity in the motor cortex is unclear. In the study, TUS with different parameters was used to stimulate the mouse cerebellar region while local field potentials (LFP) in the cerebellum and the motor cortex were simultaneously recorded, as well as neuronal calcium ion activity. We discovered that: 1) TUS can increase the amplitude and power intensity of LFP in the cerebellum and motor cortex, which linearly increasing with the increase of ultrasound intensity, and nonlinearly increasing with the increase of the duty cycle; 2) TUS in the cerebellum significantly increased the firing time and peak of neurons of the motor cortex, which also increased linearly with the increase of ultrasound intensity and nonlinearly with the increase of duty cycle; 3) The cross-correlation information of the LFP between the cerebellum and motor cortex was enhanced, which depends on ultrasound intensity and duty cycle; 4) TUS in the cerebellum for 7 days improved the motor ability of ischemic stroke mice. Taken together, the above findings indicate that TUS of the cerebellum can modulate the excitability of neural activity in the motor cortex, which is important in modulating the symptoms of motor cortex-related diseases. We also describe the ameliorative effect of TUS of the cerebellum on movement disorders caused by cerebral ischemia.
Abstract via europepmc.
Exposures
Exposure 1: Cerebellar (dentate nucleus) TUS, sweep of pressure and duty cycle
Target: deep cerebellar nuclei — “the dentate nucleus”
Device: Olympus / Panametrics · Olympus · V302-SU ✓
| Waveform | pulsed | |
|---|---|---|
| Fundamental frequency (kHz) | 1,000 | ✓✓✓ |
| Pulse duration (ms) | not reported | ⚑ |
| Pulse repetition frequency (Hz) | 1,000 | ✓✓✓ |
| Duty cycle (%) | 5, 10, 20, 40, 60swept | ✓✓✓ |
| Sonication duration (s) | 0.2 | ✓✓✓ |
| Free-field pressure (kPa) | not reported | |
|---|---|---|
| Free-field Isppa (W/cm²) | not reported | |
| Free-field Ispta (W/cm²) | not reported | |
| In-situ estimate | not reported | |
| In-situ pressure (kPa) | not reported | |
| In-situ Isppa (W/cm²) | not reported | |
| In-situ Ispta (W/cm²) | not reported | |
| Pressure, domain unspecified (kPa) | 50, 100, 200, 400, 600swept | ✓✓✓⚑ |
Pressure sweep (0.05-0.6 MPa at 40% duty cycle) and duty cycle sweep (5-60% at 0.4 MPa); 8 stimulations per parameter at 20 s intervals. Stroke experiment: 0.4 MPa, 40% duty cycle, 30 minutes daily for 7 days.
Flags from extraction
n_subjects— Group sizes by experiment (27 LFP, 17 GCaMP, 40 stroke of which 20 were not sonicated); analyses report N=14 and N=10, inconsistent with these counts.n_sessions_per_subject— 7 daily sessions applies to the stroke experiment only; other experiments were single sessions.provenance.sham— Sham groups are referred to in supplementary figures (S1-S4) but how sham was produced is not described in the main text.exposures[0].timing.pulse_duration_ms— Pulse duration not stated.exposures[0].unspecified_domain.pressure_kpa— Pressures given as sound pressure in MPa; domain not stated. Paper acknowledges skull attenuation as a limitation.auditory_control— Separate experiment aimed TUS at ears and nose of mice and recorded no cerebellar or M1 response (Fig S5); authors note auditory effects cannot be excluded.