Key Points
- The 4th Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation (FUN) Meeting was held July 12–14, 2023, at Stanford University.
- Technical, biomechanism, neuroscience, and clinical sessions addressed the use of focused ultrasound for neuromodulation.
The International Transcranial Ultrasonic Stimulation Safety and Standards (iTRUSST) Consortium’s 4th Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation (FUN) Meeting was held July 12–14, 2023, on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, CA. The three-day in-person conference was also available virtually and included technical, biomechanism, neuroscience, and clinical sessions.
Following the conference, iTRUSST held an educational program on July 15–16 with lectures, discussion, and demonstrations on clinical trials and preclinical studies.
FUN’s keynote presentation, “Noninvasive Brain Simulation,” was given by Nolan Williams, MD, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and the Director of the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab. Dr. Williams is triple board-certified in general neurology, general psychiatry, and behavioral neurology and neuropsychiatry. He is an expert in the development of brain stimulation methodologies.
Additionally, seven world experts presented the following invited lectures:
- Effects of Human Amygdala Transcranial Ultrasound on Emotion and Decision Making by Miriam Klein-Flugge, PhD, MSc, from the University of Oxford
- Sonothermogenetics: Advances and Challenges by Hong Chen, PhD, from Washington University in St. Louis
- Sonogenetics for Selective Modulation of Deep Neural Circuits by Lei Sun, PhD, from Hong Kong Polytechnic University
- Ultrasonic Modulation of Pain Networks by Bashar Badran, PhD, from the Medical University of South Carolina
- MR-Guided Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation of Deep Brain Regions by Charles Caskey, PhD, from Vanderbilt University
- Monitoring of Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation in the Central and Peripheral Nervous Systems by Elisa Konofagou, PhD, from Columbia University
- Biophysical Safety by Jean-Francois Aubry, PhD, from Physics for Medicine Paris
In an important follow-up to the meeting, iTRUSST published a new consensus paper, the Consensus on Biophysical Safety for Transcranial Ultrasonic Stimulation, on the arXiv open-access archive. The manuscript is now being submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for review and publication.
A second follow-up is that iTRUSST is in the final revisions of a manuscript on Standardized Reporting for Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation. Anyone who would like to know more or comment on the manuscript should contact Kim Butts Pauly at kimbutts@stanford.edu.
The Focused Ultrasound Foundation was one of the event sponsors.
FUN24 will be organized in Toronto, and FUN25 is planned for Hong Kong. More details will be posted soon, but those interested can join the iTRUSST and FUN mailing list (itrusst@googlegroups.com) through the Google Groups interface or email lennart.verhagen@donders.ru.nl to be added to the manual email list. A Gmail account is not required for Google Groups, but the interface is blocked by some spam filters.
The programs for the conference and the educational program are available on the FUN 2023 website.