Ultrasound ‘helmet’ could treat Parkinson’s without surgery, study finds

An ultrasound helmet that can target brain areas 1,000 times smaller than previous ultrasound methods may offer a non-invasive alternative to surgery for Parkinson’s disease.

The device directs mechanical pulses to regions as small as a grain of rice in the brain, potentially replacing deep brain stimulation (DBS).

DBS requires electrodes to be surgically implanted into the brain to deliver electrical pulses.

The helmet, developed by teams at Oxford University and University College London, could also be used to study or treat depression, Tourette syndrome, chronic pain, Alzheimer’s and addiction.

Unlike current DBS methods that use metal frames fixed to the skull, the helmet sits inside an MRI scanner and contains 256 ultrasound sources.

“It is a head helmet with 256 sources that fits inside an MRI scanner,” said Ioana Grigoras of Oxford University, both an author and participant in the study.

“It is chunky and claustrophobic putting it on the head at first, but then you get comfortable.”

The system can hit brain regions 30 times smaller than previous deep-brain ultrasound devices.

In early tests, researchers used the helmet on seven volunteers, directing ultrasound waves to the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) – a relay point for visual signals moving from the eyes to the brain.

“The waves reached their target with remarkable accuracy,” said senior author Prof Charlotte Stagg of Oxford University.

“That alone was extraordinary, and no one has done it before.”

Follow-up work showed that modulating the LGN produced lasting effects in the visual cortex, reducing its activity.

“The equivalent in patients with Parkinson’s would be targeting a motor control region and seeing tremors disappear,” Stagg said.

The team is already testing the device on brain regions linked with Parkinson’s, schizophrenia, stroke recovery, pain and depression.

UCL academics Elly Martin and Brad Treeby, who built the helmet, stressed the importance of working with patients to make it more comfortable and adaptable.

“I created a company to focus specifically on the building of the helmet,” Treeby said.

The device currently needs MRI imaging to guide it, but with AI support it could eventually run independently, raising the possibility of home use.

Martin said further studies are required, “but our long-term goal is to refine the system into a practical clinical tool, one that could sit alongside or even replace invasive brain implants in the future”.