Dr Nada Yousif, University of Hertfordshire

The past decade has seen an explosion in both support for research projects into neural circuitry and huge advances in neurotechnology. My proposed project sits at the interface of these two, aiming to understand the mechanisms and downstream effects of one important clinical treatment, to improve the clinical practice and optimise the technology.

The human nervous system contains billions of neurons, which communicate to one another via pulses of electrical signals. When something goes wrong, such as through disease, the electrical signalling is often thought to be disrupted. For example, when a person develops a movement disorder, such as a repetitive unwanted movement of a body part known as a tremor, research indicates that this is linked to unwanted oscillations in brain activity.

Historically, such disorders were treated by surgically destroying the brain tissue in the pathological region of the brain. In more recent years, electrical deep brain stimulation (DBS) via an implanted electrode can be used as a so-called functional lesion. Alternatively, focused ultrasound (FUS) has been used as a non-invasive lesioning technique. However, the precise impact of the ultrasound induced acoustic heating field has had limited investigation.

Specifically, during this project I will build on my expertise from DBS, and recent initial work on FUS to produce patient specific models of the FUS induced lesion site in the correct anatomical location using medical imaging data and brain atlases. These will be coupled to existing biophysical models of axons and neurons and a model of network activity. This combined FUS model will be used to understand clinical efficacy with regards to lesion location and sonication. The key outcome of this project will be to improve the clinical effect for people with essential tremor.