alt Hacker NewsAwesome! I know of efforts to leverage focused ultrasound to shorten sleep cycles and improve mental health. There’s so much more possible in neuroscience, great to see this work is gaining steam.
Awesome! I know of efforts to leverage focused ultrasound to shorten sleep cycles and improve mental health. There’s so much more possible in neuroscience, great to see this work is gaining steam.
I think you are referring to slow-wave enhancement wrt "shorten sleep cycles", which probably isn't the right way to look at it.
We've been developing slow-wave enhancement for the past 4 years using auditory stimulation.
The problem with using focused ultrasound to accomplish this (I believe), is that the focal point creates heat, and I don't believe we want to be consistently creating hot spots of neurons in the brain.
Other methods (acoustic, visual, haptic) have proven efficacy by "tricking" the brain into increasing slow-wave delta power, and tMCS (magnetic) coaxes the neurons into a slow-wave pattern - though this is not realistic outside of a clinical setting atm.
Absolutely there is tons happening in neuroscience (lots here in Sydney, Aus), and focused ultrasound has it's place, but as a daily use, I'm not there with it yet.
For treatment of depression, for diagnosis, etc, absolutely. Though in depression treatment, SAINT protocol tCMS is very impressive.