Jean-François Aubry at 4pm

Research Director at CNRS, Physics for Medicine Paris

Title: Precise transcranial ultrasonic focusing using acoustic lenses: feasibility and new perspectives in deep brain stimulation

Abstract: Since the late 1920s, less than 10 years after Paul Langevin filed his first patent on the development of an ultrasound transducer, intense research has focused on the medical applications of high-intensity focused ultrasound, particularly for cerebral applications. Unfortunately, for a long time, the skull constituted an impenetrable barrier to ultrasound. In the late 1990s, the use of multi-element arrays and the development of new aberration correction techniques laid the theoretical and technological foundations for transcranial ultrasound focusing. After introducing the most recent transcranial focusing techniques based on the use of acoustic lenses, we will show that the latest pre-clinical and clinical results provide physicians with a revolutionary tool enabling them, for the first time, to achieve deep brain stimulation in a non-invasive way.