Focused ultrasound, the researchers hope, could revolutionize treatment for conditions from Alzheimer’s to epilepsy to brain tumors — and even help repair the devastating damage caused by stroke.

Richard J. Price, PhD, of UVA’s School of Medicine and School of Engineering, is using focused soundwaves to overcome the natural «blood-brain barrier,» which protects the brain from harmful pathogens. His approach aims to breach the barrier only where needed, and only when needed, and then deliver treatments in exquisitely precise fashion.

«The blood-brain barrier is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, challenge to drug delivery for the central nervous system,» Price explained. «Evolution gave us this barrier because the central nervous system needs to be protected. The problem is now we want to deliver something to those cells and evolution has had millions and millions of years to optimize a solution to stop it. … So I’m attempting to circumvent biology with physics.»

Focused Ultrasound’s Great Potential

Focused ultrasound focuses sound waves inside the brain much like a magnifying glass can focus light, letting doctors manipulate tissue without cutting into the skull. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), meanwhile, lets them watch what’s happening inside the brain in real time. While Price, a biomedical engineer, is developing his techniques in the lab, doctors are already using the technology to treat conditions such as Parkinson’s tremor.

Price marvels at the approach’s specificity. «With MRI, we can look at the target, whether it’s a brain tumor or maybe it’s a part of the brain we want to do gene therapy on, and we can select it — we can actually make a treatment plan and say, We only want to open the [blood-brain] barrier there. The other 95% of the brain, we don’t even touch,» said Price, the research director at UVA’s Focused Ultrasound Center. «Then, when we apply the focused ultrasound, it opens the barrier there for a few hours. It lets us get the gene therapy across, and then it closes naturally.»

Delivering Gene Therapy

Story Source: Materials provided by University of Virginia Health System. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.