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
Lisa Spiering
University of Oxford
Ayache Bouakaz
Inserm iBraiN
Johannes Algermissen
University of Zurich
Eleanor Stride
University of Oxford
Pierre Pouget
ICM Paris Brain Institute, CNRS
Daniel Whitcomb
University of Bristol
Jérôme Sallet JS
INSERM - University of Oxford
Charlotte Reese Marshall
Assistant Professor
University of Birmingham
Junfeng Sun
Professor
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Vera A Khokhlova
University of Washington, USA and Moscow State University, Russia, D.Sc
Sebastian Reichstein
MSc
Donders Institute Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Miriam C Klein-Flugge
Oxford Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3EL, United Kingdom; Department of Psychiatry,Warneford Hospital, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7JX, United Kingdom
Arno Villringer
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences
Marcus Kaiser
Centre for Neurotechnology, Neuromodulation, and Neurotherapeutics, University of Nottingham and DeepBrain, United Kingdom
Kevin A Caulfield
Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of South Carolina
Bradley E. Treeby
NeuroHarmonics LTD, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, UK
Kenneth van der Zee
PhD Candidate
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour
Joshua Marquez
Mr
King's College London
Tommaso Di Ianni
PhD
University of California San Francisco
Estelle Raffin
Dr
CNRS, LPNC
Sumner Norman
Forest Neurotech
Samuel Pichardo
Radiology and Clinical Neurosciences, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Cyril LAFON
INSERM LabTAU
Raag D. Airan
Stanford University
Dennis L Parker
Department of Radiology and Imaging Science, University of Utahs
Mikhail G Shapiro
Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical & Medical Engineering at Caltech; Investigator at HHM
Maja Friedemann
PhD
University of Oxford
Robert Chen
Krembil Research Institute and University of Toronto
Paul Boon
MD, PhD, FEAN
Ghent University, Belgium and Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
Joseph Balfe
University of Oxford
Eleanor Martin
Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London
Rajiv Mahadevan
Attune Neurosciences
Axel Thielscher
Technical Unversity of Denmark & Danish Research Centre for MR
Kai Yu
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut
Ruggero Condorelli
Research Assistant
Donders Centre for Cognition
Jan Kubanek
Psychiatry, Radiology, Neurology, and Biomedical Engineering; Washington University
Andres Lozano
Division of Neurosurgery, University Health Network and University of Toronto
Martin Wimmers
TU/e EM4C&C; Donders Dnstitute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour Radboud University
Christopher Petkov
University of Iowa
Matthew Rushworth
University of Oxford
James McLaughlan
Dr
University of Leeds
David Norris
Radboud University, Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour
Wayne Kreider
University of Washington, USA
Tulika Nandi
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Elena Andres
Dr.
Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
Emilie Franceschini
Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LMA, Marseille
Fady Girgis
University of Calgary
Ghazaleh Darmani
Krembil Research Institute, University of Toronto
Benjamin Kop
Stanford University
Norman Spivak
UCLA
Marco K Wittmann
University College London
Elsa F. Fouragnan
School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, UK; Brain Research Imaging Center, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, UK
Thomas Paul
PhD Student
Ecole Polytechnique F�d�rale de Lausanne
Keith R. Murphy
Attune Neurosciences, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Ivan Suarez-Castellano
PhD
Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound (LabTAU), INSERM U1032, Lyon, France.
Til Ole Bergmann
Prof. Dr.
Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center Mainz, Germany
Nader Saffari
University College London (UCL)
Maxime Lafond
Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound, LabTAU, Inserm U1032, Lyon, France
Adam C Waspe
Hospital for Sick Children and University of Toronto
Davide Martino
Department of Clinical Neuroscience & Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB Canada
Jean-Michel Escoffre
iBraiN, U1253, Inserm, Université de Tours, France
David J Segar
Nudge
Ying Meng
University of Toronto
Karin Roelofs
Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Gianmarco Pinton
Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & North, Carolina State University
Li Min Chen
MD, PhD
Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
G Bruce Pike
University of Calgary
Wynn Legon
Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion
Cyril Atkinson-Clement
Brain Research and Imaging Centre, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL6 8BU, United Kingdom.
Alexander Bystritsky
CEO
Brainsonix
Francesco Prada
Istituto Neurologico C. Besta, Milano
Ellen J Bubrick
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Ivan Toni
Donders Institute, Radboud University
Leo P Sugrue
MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Mark Palmeri
M.D, Ph.D
Duke University, Department of Biomedical Engineering
James Choi
Imperial College London
Oleg A Sapozhnikov
University of Washington, USA and Moscow State University, Russia
Joline Fan
University of California San Francisco
Robert S Fisher
MD, PhD
Department of Neurology and Neurological Science, Stanford University School of Medicine
Lilian Aline Weber
Center for Cognitive Science, Osnabrueck University, Osnabrueck, Germany
James Hong
Academic Clinical Fellow in psychiatry
Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford
Niklas Kroner-Weigl
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Tom Matula
Director, Center for Industrial and Medical Ultrasound
Unhiversity of Washington
Hanneke den Ouden
Professor
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, the Netherlands
Harriet Lea-Banks
University College London
J Brian Fowlkes
PhD
Department of Radiology and Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
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
William J Tyler
UAB Center for Neuroengineering and Brain Computer Interfaces
Hairong Zheng
Lennart Verhagen
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6525 GD, Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Lei SUN
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Antonios Pouliopoulos
King's College London
Arno Schmitgen
Localite GmbH
James Coxon
Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Kim Butts Pauly
Stanford University
Seung-Schik Yoo
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Merritt Maduke
Stanford University School of Medicine
Chris Butler
Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London
Muhammad Zubair
Openwater
Roshan Cools
Professor of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging; Radboud university medical Center, Department of Psychiatry, Nijmegen