Targeting central thalamus with transcranial ultrasound reduces arousal in healthy volunteers

Published October 26, 2026. Focused ultrasound aimed at two nearby thalamic regions produced different task changes in healthy volunteers: central-thalamic stimulation reduced vigilance, while pulvinar stimulation disrupted attention to the opposite visual field. The result supports ultrasound as a research tool for mapping brain function, not as evidence of a health benefit.

Hopkins AR, Cain JA, White EA, Abakians SM, Monti MM.
Communications Biology · Publication date: 2026-10-26
Added to site: 2026-10-27
DOI: 10.1038/s42003-026-10637-7

Published October 26, 2026. Added to Neurofeedback.com October 27, 2026.

Modalities

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation, Behavioral brain mapping

Clinical focus

Arousal, Visuospatial attention, Thalamic function

Population

Healthy adult volunteers

Sample

27 participants, including two women

Intervention / method

Participants completed vigilance and visuospatial-attention tasks before and after sham, central-thalamic and pulvinar sonication

Comparator

Within-participant sham and a second active thalamic target

Clinician summary

In 27 healthy volunteers, central-thalamic sonication slowed responses and increased vigilance lapses, while pulvinar sonication reduced and slowed contralateral visual responses. The active-target contrast supports anatomical specificity within the tested tasks, but the abstract does not provide effect estimates, adverse-event counts or longer follow-up.

How to interpret the findings

The sample was small and included only two women. These were short-term behavioral effects in healthy volunteers, not clinical outcomes. The checked abstract omits numerical effect estimates, multiplicity detail, safety counts and durability. Reduced arousal and disrupted attention should not be described as therapeutic benefit, and the findings do not establish how other targets or protocols would behave.

Equipment and disclosures

The accessible abstract identifies low-intensity focused transcranial ultrasound but does not support generalization across devices or protocols. No equipment is attributed to BrainMaster.

Supported by National Science Foundation award DGE-2034835. The PubMed record states that the authors declared no competing interests. No correction, retraction or expression-of-concern relation appeared in the retained PubMed and Crossref records; this is a bounded check. AI-assisted source review.

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