{"id":2563,"date":"2015-09-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-15T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vermont.salk.edu\/news-release\/in-first-salk-scientists-use-sound-waves-to-control-brain-cells\/"},"modified":"2015-11-15T08:12:29","modified_gmt":"2015-11-15T16:12:29","slug":"in-first-salk-scientists-use-sound-waves-to-control-brain-cells","status":"publish","type":"disclosure","link":"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/in-first-salk-scientists-use-sound-waves-to-control-brain-cells\/","title":{"rendered":"In first, Salk scientists use sound waves to control brain cells"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\nLA JOLLA\u2013Salk scientists have developed a new way to selectively activate brain, heart, muscle and other cells using ultrasonic waves. The new technique, dubbed sonogenetics, has some similarities to the burgeoning use of light to activate cells in order to better understand the brain.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThis new method\u2013which uses the same type of waves used in medical sonograms\u2013may have advantages over the light-based approach\u2013known as optogenetics\u2013particularly when it comes to adapting the technology to human therapeutics. It was described September 15, 2015 in the journal <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/ncomms\/2015\/150915\/ncomms9264\/full\/ncomms9264.html\">Nature Communications<\/a><\/em>.\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rUhgUq5VIJo\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cLight-based techniques are great for some uses and I think we\u2019re going to continue to see developments on that front,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/faculty\/chalasani.html\/\">Sreekanth Chalasani<\/a>, an assistant professor in Salk\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/faculty\/molecular_neurobiology_laboratory.html\/\">\u5206\u5b50\u795e\u7ecf\u751f\u7269\u5b66\u5b9e\u9a8c\u5ba4<\/a> and senior author of the study. \u201cBut this is a new, additional tool to manipulate neurons and other cells in the body.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\nIn optogenetics, researchers add light-sensitive channel proteins to neurons they wish to study. By shining a focused laser on the cells, they can selectively open these channels, either activating or silencing the target neurons. But using an optogenetics approach on cells deep in the brain is difficult: typically, researchers have to perform surgery to implant a fiber optic cable that can reach the cells. Plus, light is scattered by the brain and by other tissues in the body.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nChalasani and his group decided to see if they could develop an approach that instead relied on ultrasound waves for the activation. \u201cIn contrast to light, low-frequency ultrasound can travel through the body without any scattering,\u201d he says. \u201cThis could be a big advantage when you want to stimulate a region deep in the brain without affecting other regions,\u201d adds Stuart Ibsen, a postdoctoral fellow in the Chalasani lab and first author of the new work.\n<\/p>\n<div class=\"imageCaption\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-bottom: 1px #006699 solid;\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/2110-Nature-Comm-simple.jpg\"><\/p>\n<p>For the first time, sound waves are used to control brain cells. Salk scientists developed the new technique, dubbed sonogenetics, to selectively and noninvasively turn on groups of neurons in worms that could be a boon to science and medicine.<\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/2110-Nature-Comm-simple.jpg\">Click here<\/a> for a high-resolution image.<\/p>\n<p>\nImage: Courtesy of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\nChalasani and his colleagues first showed that, in the nematode <em>Caenorhabditis elegans<\/em>, microbubbles of gas outside of the worm were necessary to amplify the low-intensity ultrasound waves. \u201cThe microbubbles grow and shrink in tune with the ultrasound pressure waves,\u201d Ibsen says. \u201cThese oscillations can then propagate noninvasively into the worm.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\nNext, they found a membrane ion channel, TRP-4, which can respond to these waves. When mechanical deformations from the ultrasound hitting gas bubbles propagate into the worm, they cause TRP-4 channels to open up and activate the cell. Armed with that knowledge, the team tried adding the TRP-4 channel to neurons that don\u2019t normally have it.<br \/>\nWith this approach, they successfully activated neurons that don\u2019t usually react to ultrasound.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nSo far, sonogenetics has only been applied to <em>C. elegans<\/em> neurons. But TRP-4 could be added to any calcium-sensitive cell type in any organism including humans, Chalasani says. Then, microbubbles could be injected into the bloodstream, and distributed throughout the body\u2013an approach already used in some human imaging techniques. Ultrasound could then noninvasively reach any tissue of interest, including the brain, be amplified by the microbubbles, and activate the cells of interest through TRP-4. And many cells in the human body, he points out, can respond to the influxes of calcium caused by TRP-4.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cThe real prize will be to see whether this could work in a mammalian brain,\u201d Chalasani says. His group has already begun testing the approach in mice. \u201cWhen we make the leap into therapies for humans, I think we have a better shot with noninvasive sonogenetics approaches than with optogenetics.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>\nBoth optogenetics and sonogenetics approaches, he adds, hold promise in basic research by letting scientists study the effect of cell activation. And they also may be useful in therapeutics through the activation of cells affected by disease. However, for either technique to be used in humans, researchers first need to develop safe ways to deliver the light or ultrasound-sensitive channels to target cells.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nOther researchers on the study were Stuart Ibsen and Ada Tong of the Salk Institute, and Carolyn Schutt and Sadik Esener of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ucsd.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">University of California, San Diego<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nThe work and the researchers involved were supported by a Salk Institute Pioneer Fund Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Salk Institute Innovation Grant, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ritaallenfoundation.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Rita Allen Foundation<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wmkeck.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">W.M. Keck Foundation<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nih.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Institutes of Health<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","faculty":[77],"disease-research":[],"class_list":["post-2563","disclosure","type-disclosure","status-publish","hentry","faculty-sreekanth-chalasani"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>In first, Salk scientists use sound waves to control brain cells - Salk Institute for Biological Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salk.edu\/zh\/news-release\/in-first-salk-scientists-use-sound-waves-to-control-brain-cells\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"zh_CN\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"In first, Salk scientists use sound waves to control brain cells - Salk Institute for Biological Studies\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"LA JOLLA\u2013Salk scientists have developed a new way to selectively activate brain, heart, muscle and other cells using ultrasonic waves. 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