Symposium
Session Room: Carron
Session Room: Carron
Saturday, June 27, 10:50 AM – 12:05 PM
Symposium 4:
Non-invasive deep-brain stimulation in psychiatry
Non-invasive deep-brain stimulation in psychiatry
Non‑invasive brain stimulation (NIBS) has become an important tool in psychiatry, offering new ways to modulate dysfunctional neural circuits and alleviate symptoms in disorders such as depression, anxiety, and OCD. Traditional approaches like transcranial electrical stimulation (tES) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) have shown clinical benefit, but their effects are largely limited to superficial cortical regions. This presents a major challenge, as many core circuits implicated in psychiatric disorders involve deeper brain structures, including the amygdala, hippocampus, and striatum. To address this limitation, innovative methods such as focused transcranial ultrasonic stimulation (TUS), and transcranial interference stimulation (TIS) are emerging. These techniques hold the promise of reaching subcortical targets with greater precision and flexibility, potentially enabling more effective and personalized interventions. By extending the reach of NIBS beyond the cortex, they open new avenues for mechanistic research and therapeutic applications in psychiatry.
The first speaker, Dr Georg Kranz, CINP member, will open the session by introducing the field of NIBS and summarizing the current evidence for its use in psychiatry. He will highlight the clinical progress achieved with established methods such as TMS and tES, while also addressing their limitations in reaching deeper brain structures that are central to many psychiatric disorders. He will set the stage for discussing the urgent need for innovative approaches, including TIS, TUS and its pulsed version, transcranial pulse stimulation (TPS). Dr. Kranz has made several contributions to therapeutic TMS by combining TMS with neuroimaging to investigate mechanisms of action, optimize stimulation protocols, and explore its therapeutic potential in psychiatric disorders [1-3].
The second speaker is Dr. Ines Violante from King's College London, a leading figure in TIS research, whose work bridges neuroimaging and non‑invasive brain stimulation to understand and modulate large‑scale brain networks. She has made important contributions by showing how TIS can alter oscillatory dynamics and improve cognitive functions such as working memory. Dr. Violante will discuss her group’s recent work demonstrating the use of TIS as a novel, non-invasive method to selectively target the hippocampus in humans. Dr. Violante will also share their ongoing research exploring how TIS can be used to causally probe cortical-hippocampal communication during sleep, offering new insights into the mechanisms underlying memory consolidation [4-6].
The third speaker is Dr. Til Ole Bergmann, Professor of Neurostimulation at the Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center in Mainz, Germany. His talk will cover recent research on TUS, offering the ability to precisely target deep brain structures. Research from Til Ole Bergmann’s group integrates TUS with EEG and fMRI to characterize its effects on neural activity, connectivity, and oscillatory dynamics. Their work demonstrates how closed‑loop, state‑dependent stimulation can causally probe brain rhythms and plasticity, providing new insights into cognition and potential therapeutic strategies. Ongoing efforts aim to refine targeting methods and explore translational applications for neuropsychiatric disorders. Prof. Bergmann is a leading figure in advancing TUS as a non-invasive neuromodulation tool in humans [7-9].
The first speaker, Dr Georg Kranz, CINP member, will open the session by introducing the field of NIBS and summarizing the current evidence for its use in psychiatry. He will highlight the clinical progress achieved with established methods such as TMS and tES, while also addressing their limitations in reaching deeper brain structures that are central to many psychiatric disorders. He will set the stage for discussing the urgent need for innovative approaches, including TIS, TUS and its pulsed version, transcranial pulse stimulation (TPS). Dr. Kranz has made several contributions to therapeutic TMS by combining TMS with neuroimaging to investigate mechanisms of action, optimize stimulation protocols, and explore its therapeutic potential in psychiatric disorders [1-3].
The second speaker is Dr. Ines Violante from King's College London, a leading figure in TIS research, whose work bridges neuroimaging and non‑invasive brain stimulation to understand and modulate large‑scale brain networks. She has made important contributions by showing how TIS can alter oscillatory dynamics and improve cognitive functions such as working memory. Dr. Violante will discuss her group’s recent work demonstrating the use of TIS as a novel, non-invasive method to selectively target the hippocampus in humans. Dr. Violante will also share their ongoing research exploring how TIS can be used to causally probe cortical-hippocampal communication during sleep, offering new insights into the mechanisms underlying memory consolidation [4-6].
The third speaker is Dr. Til Ole Bergmann, Professor of Neurostimulation at the Johannes Gutenberg University Medical Center in Mainz, Germany. His talk will cover recent research on TUS, offering the ability to precisely target deep brain structures. Research from Til Ole Bergmann’s group integrates TUS with EEG and fMRI to characterize its effects on neural activity, connectivity, and oscillatory dynamics. Their work demonstrates how closed‑loop, state‑dependent stimulation can causally probe brain rhythms and plasticity, providing new insights into cognition and potential therapeutic strategies. Ongoing efforts aim to refine targeting methods and explore translational applications for neuropsychiatric disorders. Prof. Bergmann is a leading figure in advancing TUS as a non-invasive neuromodulation tool in humans [7-9].