Biophysical mechanisms responsible for ultrasound neuromodulation in bilayer lipid membranes: Enabling the research that uncovers the mysterious interactions between ultrasound and neurons

Medical technology has seen great progress over the last centuries, developing increasingly more specialised therapy to benefit human health. The rise of the pharmaceutical industry and the research it drives are contributors to this success. However, in humanity's attempt to tackle more and more complex health issues, the conventional methods...

Energy Efficient High Voltage Driver for High Frequency Ultrasound Medical Applications

Noninvasive brain stimulation plays an essential role in diagnosing and treating diseases of the brain. This stimulation can affect disease-related changes in brain activation, inhibition, or connectivity. Ultrasound neuromodulation is a rapidly growing field of noninvasive brain stimulation. In a form of acoustic pressure waves, ultrasound can...

A High-Frequency Beamforming Channel for Ultrasound Stimulation and Ultrasonic Powering

New non-imaging ultrasound applications, such as ultrasound stimulation and ultrasonic power transfer, need sub-millimeter volumetric spatial resolution, electronically control of the focal spot location, high ultrasound intensity, and a tiny form factor. Satisfying these requirements demands a high-frequency phased array ultrasound transducer....

Maximization of Transmitted Acoustic Intensity from Silicon Integrated Piezoelectric Ultrasound Transducers

2D phased array ultrasonic transducers realized through the combination of bulk piezoelectric ceramics and complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) integrated circuits (IC) are enabling a new range of wearable ultrasound therapeutic applications. Traditional therapeutic ultrasound transducers have an air backing layer to maximize...

An Integrated 2D Ultrasound Phased Array Transmitter in CMOS with Pixel Pitch-Matched Beamforming

Emerging non-imaging ultrasound applications, such as ultrasonic wireless power delivery to implantable devices and ultrasound neuromodulation, require wearable form factors, millisecond-range pulse durations and focal spot diameters approaching 100 μm with electronic control of its three-dimensional location. None of these are compatible...

An ultrasound receiver channel for vagus nerve imaging

The neuromodulation modality based on the focused ultrasonic stimulation (FUS) has gained its interests for being non-invasive while having unprecedented high spatial resolution and deep penetration. The commercially available image-guided FUS device for neuromodulation setups are normally bulky, by employing an 1-D array transducer element to...