2021 Bubble Activity in Therapeutic Ultrasound Workshop-Neuronavigation-Guided Focused Ultrasound: A Platform for Accelerating the Treatment of CNS Disease

The Focused Ultrasound Foundation and the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine’s Future Fund are hosting a virtual workshop series on Detecting, Mapping, and Quantifying Bubble Activity in Therapeutic Ultrasound every Friday, from September 24 through October 29, from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm Eastern Time.

The objectives of the workshop are to identify the levels of knowledge, gaps in knowledge, and best practices in bubble activity dosimetry for ultrasound therapy.

NaviFUS Founder & Chief Technical Consultant Hao-Li Liu, Ph.D. also participated in the virtual workshop this year. He presented the seminar Neuronavigation-Guided Focused Ultrasound: A Platform for Accelerating the Treatment of CNS Disease on October 8th, 2021. He shared the results of innovative research using the NaviFUS® (Neuronavigator-guided transcranial focused ultrasound system) with microbubbles to 1) open the Blood-brain barrier (BBB) and enhance CNS drug delivery and 2) neuromodulation for better treatment outcomes.

Summary：

Fixed power-level scheme
• Suggested threshold level: MI ϵ [0.4,0.8], in commercialized microbubbles
• Pros: Straightforward and feasible
• Concern: Need to individually consider and precisely predict transcranial loss

PCD-based power control scheme
• Subharmonics, harmonics, and ultraharmonics can all serve as effective indicators
• Pros: Tailored-tuned sonication to warrant BBBo effect and skip individual transcranial heterogeneity
• Concern: “dose”, and “threshold” yet to be unified, due to independence of transducer performance, sensitivity, and bandwidth