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Sound wave neurosurgery burns holes in your brain, not your skull
The thought of focused ultrasonic beams burning away brain tissue isn't exactly comfortable, but when you factor in not having your skull opened up — well, then it's starting to sound better. The procedure involves an ultrasonic device paired up with an MRI machine, the latter of which pinpoints places for the sound waves to focus on and burn.
Nine patients in Switzerland have already been operated on using high-intensity focused ultrasound (or HIFU). They were only chronic pain sufferers suffered from chronic pain, and the success of the operations make researchers hopeful that similar techniques can be used to combat other conditions, such as Parkinson's disease.
The procedure has been used before to remove uterine fibroids (or small, benign tumors in the uterus), and looks like a promising candidate to eliminate tumors from breasts and, hopefully, the brain. The biggest challenge when tackling the brain is getting the ultrasonic beams through the skull with any intensity, but that's handled by a head harness developed by InSightec, which is equipped with 1,000 ultrasound transducers and even built-in cooling to keep the skull from overheating.
Tinkering with the brain still sounds scary to me, but neurosurgeon Neal Kassell of the University of Virginia told the Technology Review, "The precision and accuracy [are] considerably greater with ultrasound, and it should be in principle safer in the long run."
By Tomas at 10:36 AM ON 07/23/09
Ouch, sounds weird. But promising, especially for Parkinson disease. Who will be for volountee? :)
By Beeg at 10:48 AM ON 07/23/09
ONLY chronic pain! Try hurting 24 hours a day. Any treatment that stops pain that morphine only dulls is welcome.
By Kevin Hall at 11:35 AM ON 07/23/09
@Beeg
You're right, Beeg. I didn't mean to make it sound as if chronic pains in the brain was some small thing. I've updated the language in the post.
Thanks for reading!
By Maj at 7:39 PM ON 07/23/09
That appears to be a Windows title bar.
"Brain hole burner has performed an illegal operation and must close now."
Halfway through neurosurgery. It'd be a sad, sad state of affairs.
By Random Hero at 4:31 AM ON 07/24/09
This is a great idea but I could also see this easily turned into a weaponized form
By IsoTek at 4:18 AM ON 07/28/09
"This is a great idea but I could also see this easily turned into a weaponized form"
Kind of like a beefed up LRAD?
By Arid at 1:49 PM ON 07/28/09
A weaponized version would be very difficult due to the high frequency of the Ultrasound used and the fact that changes in medium(air does not transfer well enough) generally requires much more power.
Look at it this way, even low power ultrasound requires gel to be placed on the patient so there are no airgaps causing sound energy to reflect back and damage the transducer.
I look forward to the day when we can burn out just about any tumor without needing chemotherapy since the "current" technology allows you to heat approximately a 2mm cross section without damaging the tissue between the tumor and the surface, it is ideal for brain work once the technical hurdles are overcome.
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Arid:
A weaponized version would be very difficult due to the high frequency of the Ultrasound used and the fact that cha...More »