TRPV1-mediated sonogenetic neuromodulation of motor cortex in freely moving mice.

Source: J Neural Eng 2023 Feb 13; . doi: 10.1088/1741-2552/acbba0Authors: Xu K, Yang Y, Hu Z, Yue Y, Gong Y, Cui J, Culver JP, Bruchas MR, Chen H

Noninvasive and cell-type-specific neuromodulation tools are critically needed for probing intact brain function. Sonogenetics for noninvasive activation of neurons engineered to express thermosensitive transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) by transcranial focused ultrasound (FUS) was recently developed to address this need. However, using TRPV1-mediated sonogenetics to evoke behavior by targeting the cortex is challenged by its proximity to the skull due to high skull absorption of ultrasound and increased risks of thermal-induced tissue damage.

Pubmed ID: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36780694/