Open Letter on Intervention Regimes and Adverse Events in Focused Ultrasound for Neuromodulation
A community of researchers and clinicians in focused ultrasound neuromodulation has prepared an open letter on intervention regimes and safety reporting in this field. The letter was prompted by a recently reported adverse event in a clinical trial that used low-frequency ultrasound outside the low-intensity domain.
Its purpose is to provide a clear, broadly shared expert perspective on:
- how to distinguish low-, intermediate-, and high-intensity regimes,
- how cavitation risk should be assessed across these regimes, and
- how continued collaboration and detailed reporting can support safe development of this technology for the benefit of patients and the public.
If you wish to support this position, you are invited to add your name as a signatory below.
Support and sign the Open Letter
If you wish to show your support for this letter, please complete the signature form. By signing, you agree that your name and institutional affiliation may be displayed on a public list of signatories, demonstrating the breadth of support within the scientific, clinical, and broader focused ultrasound communities.
160 Signees
Yunzhe Liu
Beijing Normal University
Matthew Rushworth
University of Oxford
Adam Harouak
Dr. med. univ.
Medical university of Vienna
Yaoheng Yang
University of Southern California
Harriet Lea-Banks
Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London, UK; UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging, Division of Medicine, University College London, London, UK
Ivan Suarez-Castellano
PhD
Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound (LabTAU), INSERM U1032, Lyon, France.
Tatiana D. Khokhlova
Division of Gastroenterology, University of Washington School of Medicine Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington
Li Min Chen
MD, PhD
Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Cyril LAFON
INSERM LabTAU
Brooke Staveland
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, San Francisco
Camilla Nord
University of Cambridge, MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit
Joshua Marquez
Mr
King's College London
Eleanor Martin
Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London
Lei SUN
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Axel Thielscher
Technical Unversity of Denmark & Danish Research Centre for MR
David Norris
Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour
Soren Konecky
CTO
Openwater
Samuel Pichardo
Radiology and Clinical Neurosciences, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Sumner Norman
Forest Neurotech
Dennis L Parker
Department of Radiology and Imaging Science, University of Utahs
Julian Kosciessa
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour
Carys Evans
Radboud University
Andres Lozano
Division of Neurosurgery, University Health Network and University of Toronto
Arno Schmitgen
Localite GmbH
Ryan M. Jones
Physical Sciences Platform, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
Nima Khalighinejad
University of Oxford
Merritt Maduke
Stanford University School of Medicine
Leo P Sugrue
MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
James Choi
Imperial College London
Thomas Paul
PhD Student
Ecole Polytechnique F�d�rale de Lausanne
Antonios Pouliopoulos
King's College London
Robert S Fisher
MD, PhD
Department of Neurology and Neurological Science, Stanford University School of Medicine
Cyril Atkinson-Clement
Brain Research and Imaging Centre, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL6 8BU, United Kingdom.
Junfeng Sun
Professor
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Seiki Konishi
Department of Neurophysiology, Juntendo University School of Medicine
Elena Andres
Dr.
Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
Robert Chen
Krembil Research Institute and University of Toronto
Wynn Legon
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion
Sjoerd Meijer
Donders Institute
Raag D. Airan
Stanford University
Adam C Waspe
Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto
David Attali
Unité de Neuropsychiatrie Interventionnelle, Hôpital Sainte-Anne, GHU Paris Psychiatrie & Neurosciences, Université Paris Cité, 75014 Paris, France; Institute Physics for Medicine Paris, Inserm U1273, ESPCI Paris, PSL University, CNRS UMR 8063, 75015 Paris, France
Mark Schafer
Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University
Ayache Bouakaz
Inserm iBraiN
Muhammad Zubair
Openwater
Ying Meng
University of Toronto
Ellen J Bubrick
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Wayne Kreider
University of Washington, USA
Alexander Bystritsky
CEO
Brainsonix
Robin O. Cleveland
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford
Arno Villringer
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
Martin Wimmers
TU/e EM4C&C; Donders Dnstitute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour Radboud University
Lennart Verhagen
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6525 GD, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
J Brian Fowlkes
PhD
Department of Radiology and Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
Emilie Franceschini
Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LMA, Marseille
Pierre Pouget
ICM Paris Brain Institute, CNRS
Maxime Lafond
Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound, LabTAU, Inserm U1032, Lyon, France
Jean-Michel Escoffre
iBraiN, U1253, Inserm, Université de Tours, France
Chris Butler
Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London
Hanneke den Ouden
Professor
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Kim Butts Pauly
Stanford University
Lawrence A Crum
University of Washington
Charles F. Caskey
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Eva Feredoes
Dr
University of Reading
James McLaughlan
Dr
University of Leeds
Ruggero Condorelli
Research Assistant
Donders Centre for Cognition
Kai Yu
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut
James Hong
Academic Clinical Fellow in psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford
Charlotte Reese Marshall
Assistant Professor
University of Birmingham
Shy Shoham
Tech4Health Institute and Departments of Neuroscience and of Ophthalmology, NYU Grossman School of Medicine
Keith R. Murphy
Attune Neurosciences, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
James Coxon
Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Eleanor Stride
University of Oxford
Erno Hermans
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour
Seung-Schik Yoo
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
William J Tyler
UAB Center for Neuroengineering and Brain Computer Interfaces
Elsa F. Fouragnan
School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, UK; Brain Research Imaging Center, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, UK
Joseph Balfe
University of Oxford
Jonas Kielmann
Localite GmbH
Vincent P Ferrera
Zuckerman Institute for Mind Brain and Behavior, Columbia University
Kenneth Bader
University of Chicago
Hairong Zheng
Maximilian Lueckel
M.Sc.
Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (LIR) & Neuroimaging Center (NIC), Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz, Germany
Sebastian Reichstein
MSc
Donders Institute Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Gregory A. Fonzo, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
The University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School
Ryan T Ash
MD, PhD
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco
Karin Roelofs
Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Suhas Vijayakumar
Neuroimaging Center, Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center, Mainz
Hao-Li Liu
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University
G Bruce Pike
University of Calgary
Joline Fan
University of California San Francisco
Vivek Sharma
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour, Radboud University.
Marcus Kaiser
Centre for Neurotechnology, Neuromodulation, and Neurotherapeutics, University of Nottingham and DeepBrain, United Kingdom
José A Pineda-Pardo
HM CINAC MADRID (Centro Integral de Neurociencias Abarca Campal); Hospital Universitario HM Puerta del Sur, HM Hospitales. Madrid, Spain
Ghazaleh Darmani
Krembil Research Institute, University of Toronto
Jeremy Barenholtz
Nudge
Christopher Petkov
University of Iowa
Takahiro Osada
Department of Neurophysiology, Juntendo University School of Medicine
Marco K Wittmann
University College London
Christopher R Bawiec
Prophetic