Lennart Verhagen

Transcranial ultrasonic stimulation (TUS) offers something previously out of reach in human neuroscience: non-invasive, focal modulation of deep brain structures with millimetre precision and temporal control.

Targeting the human amygdala, we have shown that TUS can slow threat acquisition and accelerate extinction, a long-sought intervention point for anxiety and trauma-related disorders. In the frontal eye fields, temporally precise stimulation biased saccadic choice within a fraction of a second, establishing TUS as a tool for circuit interrogation with sub-second resolution, including neurotransmitter dynamics.

In upcoming work, we demonstrate robust sustained modulation of cortical synchrony following LGN stimulation, disentangle the contributions of thalamic nuclei to cognitive and perceptual control, and show that stimulation of the nucleus accumbens and amygdala boosts reinforcement and novelty learning and modulates Pavlovian bias.
Underpinning this programme is sustained work on parameter optimisation and confound mitigation, including peripheral somatosensory co-stimulation, and the open-source PRESTUS platform for individualised acoustic simulation, planning, and reporting.

Together, these studies establish TUS as a reliable tool for interrogating human brain circuits and for directly modulating clinically relevant deep targets.