Ultrasound device offers non-invasive treatment of chronic pain

Pain is a necessary biological signal that emerges from the brain, but a variety of conditions can cause those signals to go awry. Patients with life-altering chronic pain are constantly looking for new treatment options; now, an experimental therapy developed at The University of Utah may represent a practical solution.

At the core of the Utah team’s research is Diadem — a biomedical device that uses ultrasound to non-invasively stimulate deep brain regions, potentially disrupting the faulty signals that lead to chronic pain. Diadem’s approach is based on neuromodulation, a therapeutic technique that seeks to directly regulate the activity of certain brain circuits.

While other neuromodulation approaches are based on electric currents and magnetic fields, those methods cannot selectively reach the anterior cingulate cortex — an important cortical centre of integrations of pain with emotional and situational cues. Furthermore, after an initial functional MRI scan to map the target region, Diadem’s ultrasound emitters are adjusted to correct for the way the waves deflect off the skull and other brain structures.

In a recent clinical trial, published in the journal Pain, the research team recruited 20 participants with chronic pain, who each experienced two 40-minute sessions with Diadem — receiving either real or sham ultrasound stimulation. Patients described their pain a day and a week after their sessions, with 60% of the experimental group receiving real treatment reporting a clinical meaningful reduction in symptoms at both points.

“We were not expecting such strong and immediate effects from only one treatment,” said Thomas Riis, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Professor Jan Kubanek.

Kubanek added, “The rapid onset of the pain symptom improvements, as well as their sustained nature, are intriguing, and open doors for applying these non-invasive treatments to the many patients who are resistant to current treatments.”

The team is now preparing for a Phase 3 clinical trial, which is the final step before FDA approval to use Diadem as a treatment for the general public.

Image caption: The Diadem device.