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.
145 Signees
Yasuo Terao
Department of Medical Physiology, Kyorin University
Tulika Nandi
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Kevin A Caulfield
Department of Psychiatry, Medical University of South Carolina
Ellen J Bubrick
Brigham and Women's Hospital, Department of Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Seung-Schik Yoo
Associate Professor, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Ryan M. Jones
Physical Sciences Platform, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
Ivan Toni
Donders Institute, Radboud University
Joline Fan
University of California San Francisco
Elisa Konofagou
Columbia University
Davide Martino
Department of Clinical Neuroscience & Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB Canada
Christopher R Bawiec
Prophetic
Oleg A Sapozhnikov
University of Washington, USA and Moscow State University, Russia
Emilie Franceschini
Aix-Marseille University, CNRS, LMA, Marseille
Julia Sophia Crone
University of Vienna; Paris Lodron University of Salzburg
Mikhail G Shapiro
Max Delbrück Professor of Chemical & Medical Engineering at Caltech; Investigator at HHM
Yaoheng Yang
University of Southern California
G Bruce Pike
University of Calgary
Sumner Norman
Forest Neurotech
Til Ole Bergmann
Neuroimaging Center (NIC), Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center Mainz, Langenbeckstr. 1, 55131 Mainz, Germany
Tommaso Di Ianni
PhD
University of California San Francisco
Sebastian Reichstein
MSc
Donders Institute Nijmegen, the Netherlands
Wayne Kreider
University of Washington, USA
Jérôme Sallet JS
INSERM - University of Oxford
Ryan T Ash
MD, PhD
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of California San Francisco
J Brian Fowlkes
PhD
Department of Radiology and Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan
Christopher Petkov
University of Iowa
Bradley E. Treeby
NeuroHarmonics LTD, 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, UK
W Apoutou N'Djin
Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound (LabTAU), INSERM, University Claude Bernard of Lyon, France
Jean-Michel Escoffre
iBraiN, U1253, Inserm, Université de Tours, France
Lisa Spiering
University of Oxford
Ghazaleh Darmani
Krembil Research Institute, University of Toronto
Nima Khalighinejad
University of Oxford
Julian Kosciessa
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour
Eleanor Martin
Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, University College London, London
Niklas Kroner-Weigl
Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany
Antonios Pouliopoulos
King's College London
Ayache Bouakaz
Inserm iBraiN
Benjamin Kop
Stanford University
Pierre Pouget
ICM Paris Brain Institute, CNRS
Robin O. Cleveland
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Oxford
Eleanor Stride
University of Oxford
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
Lennart Verhagen
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University, 6525 GD, 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
Jan Kubanek
Psychiatry, Radiology, Neurology, and Biomedical Engineering; Washington University
Rajiv Mahadevan
Attune Neurosciences
Paul Boon
MD, PhD, FEAN
Ghent University, Belgium and Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands
William J Tyler
UAB Center for Neuroengineering and Brain Computer Interfaces
Elena Andres
Dr.
Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research
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
Mark Palmeri
M.D, Ph.D
Duke University, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Marcus Kaiser
Centre for Neurotechnology, Neuromodulation, and Neurotherapeutics, University of Nottingham and DeepBrain, United Kingdom
Marco K Wittmann
University College London
Leo P Sugrue
MD, PhD
University of California, San Francisco
Nader Saffari
University College London (UCL)
Yunzhe Liu
Beijing Normal University
Samuel Pichardo
Radiology and Clinical Neurosciences, Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Kai Yu
Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Connecticut
Taylor Webb
Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, University of Utah
Til Ole Bergmann
Prof. Dr.
Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center Mainz, Germany
Mary R Lee
MD
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Washington DC
Erik Dumont
CEO, Image Guided Therapy, France
Trevor Chong
Monash University
Matthew Rushworth
University of Oxford
Sjoerd Meijer
Donders Institute
Jean-Francois Aubry
Institute Physics for Medicine Paris – INSERM, CNRS, ESPCI Paris-PSL, Paris, France
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
Maja Friedemann
PhD
University of Oxford
Li Min Chen
MD, PhD
Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, Institute of Imaging Science, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Kim Butts Pauly
Stanford University
Carys Evans
Radboud University
Daniel Whitcomb
University of Bristol
Robert S Fisher
MD, PhD
Department of Neurology and Neurological Science, Stanford University School of Medicine
Hartwig Roman Siebner
Danish Research Centre for Magnetic Resonance, Department of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Copenhagen University Hospital; Amager and Hvidovre
Keith R. Murphy
Attune Neurosciences, San Francisco, CA, U.S.A.
Ying Meng
University of Toronto
Raag D. Airan
Stanford University
Nadège Bault
University of Plymouth, UK
Cyril Atkinson-Clement
Brain Research and Imaging Centre, Faculty of Health, University of Plymouth, Plymouth PL6 8BU, United Kingdom.
Maxime Lafond
Laboratory of Therapeutic Applications of Ultrasound, LabTAU, Inserm U1032, Lyon, France
Nathan McDannold
Kenneth Bader
University of Chicago
Bin He
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University
James Coxon
Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
Mark Schafer
Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, West Virginia University
Martin Wimmers
TU/e EM4C&C; Donders Dnstitute for Brain Cognition and Behaviour Radboud University
Andres Lozano
Division of Neurosurgery, University Health Network and University of Toronto
Erno Hermans
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour
Estelle Raffin
Dr
CNRS, LPNC
Hao-Li Liu
Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University
Sophie Morse
Dr
Imperial College London
Johannes Algermissen
University of Zurich
Francesco Prada
Istituto Neurologico C. Besta, Milano
Chris Butler
Department of Brain Sciences, Imperial College London
Kenneth van der Zee
PhD Candidate
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition, and Behaviour
Ruggero Condorelli
Research Assistant
Donders Centre for Cognition
Tatiana D. Khokhlova
Division of Gastroenterology, University of Washington School of Medicine Applied Physics Laboratory, University of Washington
Merritt Maduke
Stanford University School of Medicine
Cyril LAFON
INSERM LabTAU
Brooke Staveland
Postdoctoral Fellow
University of California, San Francisco