Focused Ultrasound-mediated Therapies for Neurological Disorders

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editor

Tao Sun

Harvard University

Tao Sun is a Research Fellow in Radiology at Harvard Medical School (Brigham and Women’s Hospital), and a Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioengineering at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His primary research goal is to develop translational focused ultrasound (FUS) technologies in the advancement of drug delivery and immunomodulation for treating cancer and neurological diseases. Dr. Sun is currently working with Profs. Nathan McDannold and Samir Mitragotri developing drug delivery systems via bio-synthetic and bio-inspired nanoparticles after FUS-enhanced biological barrier disruption, and investigating the theranostic and immunomodulation feasibilities during microbubble-mediated ultrasound therapies. Previously during his graduate training, Dr. Sun developed a series of acoustic techniques for treatment control during FUS brain therapies. Together with Profs. Nathan McDannold and Eric Miller, he designed and validated modulated cavitation generation, monitoring, and feed-back control methods during targeted ultrasound drug delivery across the blood-brain/tumor barrier. Some of his works were featured in mainstream science and technology media including WIRED (<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/the-second-coming-of-ultrasound/" style="text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.wired.com/story/the-second-coming-of-ultrasound/</a>), Science Daily, and Medical Xpress.

Collection Overview

Focused ultrasound (FUS) is a platform technology facilitating mechanical and/or thermal effects on a localized target. As the vanguard target of FUS therapeutic applications, the brain can benefit from its ability to access deep locations without incisions or ionizing radiation and enabling reversible blood-brain barrier opening to deliver therapeutics. Clinical research is ongoing or underway internationally for the treatment of essential tremor, Parkinson's disease, brain tumors, Alzheimer's disease, and other CNS disorders.

Depending on the acoustic/physiological nature of the tissue and the ultrasound parameters, various biological effects can be induced including increased vascular permeability, sonoporation, hyperthermia, tissue ablation/destruction, neuromodulation, and immunomodulation. The availability of these biomechanisms offers potentials for designing therapies for different neurological disorders. The objective of this collection is to provide an overview of the various FUS-based techniques available to enhance treatment efficacy in the brain. We aim to firstly offer high-level insights on which FUS regimen is most suitable for a specific disease. In addition, we provide discussion on the protocol design with respect to ultrasound parameters (frequency, power, duration, and mode—continuous versus pulsed), administration of drugs/acoustic enhancer, and other critical points.