Transcranial ultrasound stimulation modulates neuronal membrane potentials across broad timescales in the awake mammalian brain

By resolving single-neuron responses in the awake mammalian brain, our results demonstrate that TUS directly activates individual cortical neurons with latencies often shorter than 10 ms. TUS pulsed at physiologically relevant frequencies of 10 and 40 Hz robustly entrains neural dynamics, alters network coordination and evokes neuronal plasticity. These results highlight the therapeutic potential of designing TUS pulsing patterns to target desired neural dynamics and plasticity features.