All posts tagged: Ultrasound

Scientists create light inside the body using ultrasound

Scientists create light inside the body using ultrasound

Published by Jenni Sidey

Getting light deep inside the body has always come with a catch. Tissue scatters and absorbs it, which means doctors and researchers often have to cut into the body or thread in optical fibers to reach the places they want to target. A team at Stanford University now says it has found a way around that problem, at least in mice. Instead of trying to shine light through layers of tissue, the researchers used ultrasound to trigger tiny particles circulating in the bloodstream, making them emit light exactly where the sound waves were focused. The result is a noninvasive method for creating small, controlled pockets of light inside living tissue. That matters because light has become an increasingly useful tool in biology and medicine. It can stimulate cell activity, influence neural signals, and help treat certain cancers. The problem has never been what light can do. It has been how to get it where it needs to go without physically entering the body. “Ultrasound is very convenient to use, and it penetrates much deeper into …

Oxford researchers find ultrasound could help save hedgehogs

Oxford researchers find ultrasound could help save hedgehogs

Published by Jenni Sidey

A sound too high for you to hear may one day help keep hedgehogs off the road. That possibility comes from a new study in Biology Letters reporting that European hedgehogs can hear ultrasound, with their strongest sensitivity around 40 kilohertz. The finding matters because road traffic is thought to kill up to one in three hedgehogs in local populations. This adds pressure to a species the International Union for Conservation of Nature newly classified as near threatened in 2024. The work gives conservation researchers something they did not have before: evidence that hedgehogs can detect frequencies above the range of human hearing. As a result, this opens the door to ultrasonic warning devices that could steer them away from cars, robotic lawnmowers and garden strimmers. Lead researcher Assistant Professor Sophie Lund Rasmussen, of the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit in Oxford’s Department of Biology and the University of Copenhagen, said the next step is practical. “Having discovered that hedgehogs can hear in ultrasound, the next stage will be to find collaborators within the car industry …

Hedgehogs can hear high-frequency ultrasound – that knowledge could help save them

Hedgehogs can hear high-frequency ultrasound – that knowledge could help save them

Published by skeptic

The hedgehog is one of Europe’s most familiar and well-loved wild mammals. Many people encounter them in gardens, hear their snuffling at dusk, or glimpse their spiny shapes moving through the night. But sadly, across Europe, hedgehog populations are shrinking rapidly. The European hedgehog is now listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conversation of Nature red list for Europe. Understanding why this is happening – and what can realistically be done to halt or reverse it – has become an urgent priority. My team’s new research shows that hedgehogs can hear high-frequency ultrasound. With this knowledge, it could be possible to design sound-based deterrents that target hedgehogs specifically, without disturbing people or their pets. In theory, ultrasonic signals could warn hedgehogs away from approaching vehicles or keep them clear of dangerous machines in the future. This is significant because one of the greatest threats to hedgehogs comes from road traffic. Cars are estimated to kill huge numbers of hedgehogs across Europe every year, with some studies suggesting that up to one in …

Ultrasound helmet reaches deep into the brain without surgery

Ultrasound helmet reaches deep into the brain without surgery

Published by Jenni Sidey

For decades, scientists have searched for a safe way to reach deep parts of the human brain without cutting into the skull. That goal now feels closer. Researchers from University College London and the University of Oxford have developed an ultrasound device that can precisely influence deep brain regions in living people, without surgery. The system opens new paths for studying how the brain works and for treating conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, depression, and essential tremor. The work centers on a technology called transcranial ultrasound stimulation, or TUS. Unlike electrical or magnetic brain stimulation, ultrasound can travel deeper through the skull. Until now, however, it lacked the precision needed to target specific brain structures. This new system changes that, allowing scientists to focus on areas thousands of times smaller than before. A Longstanding Challenge in Brain Science You rely on deep brain structures every moment, even if you never think about them. These regions help guide movement, shape emotions, and process sensory information. Yet studying them has always been difficult. Many existing tools either …

New ultrasound patch measures blood pressure without a cuff

New ultrasound patch measures blood pressure without a cuff

Published by Jenni Sidey

Every heartbeat pushes pressure through your arteries, and that pressure shifts from moment to moment. Yet most people still measure it with a cuff that squeezes the arm, then stops. A research team in South Korea now reports a thin, skin-attachable ultrasound patch that tracks blood pressure continuously, without a cuff, by watching blood vessels expand and contract in real time. The promise is simple to feel in daily life. Blood pressure changes while you sleep, walk, stress, and recover. A cuff gives snapshots. A wearable patch could show the whole story. Research team at KIMM’s Department of Bionic Machinery (Dr. Shin Hur pictured on the left). (CREDIT: KIMM) Why Cuffless Blood Pressure Still Feels Hard You already know the tradeoff. A cuff can be accurate, but it feels bulky and inconvenient. It also tends to measure at set times, not continuously. That leaves gaps that matter for people who need close monitoring. Many cuffless approaches rely on light, often as optical sensors. The research team notes that optical methods can struggle with outside factors …

BioticsAI, which won Disrupt’s Battlefield competition in 2023, gains FDA approval for its AI-powered fetal ultrasound product 

BioticsAI, which won Disrupt’s Battlefield competition in 2023, gains FDA approval for its AI-powered fetal ultrasound product 

Published by skeptic

TechCrunch Disrupt Battlefield 2023 winner, BioticsAI, announced on Monday that it has received FDA clearance for its AI software that helps detect fetal abnormalities in ultrasound images.  The product was envisioned by founder CEO Robhy Bustami, who was raised in a family of obstetricians, including his mother, aunt and uncle. He spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up, often traveling with his mother as she provided maternal care throughout the U.S.   After learning to code and studying computer science at UC Irvine, Bustami teamed up with Salman Khan, Chaskin Saroff, and Dr. Hisham Elgammal in 2021 to launch BioticsAI. The technology uses computer vision AI “to support fetal ultrasound quality assessment, anatomical completeness, automated reporting, and seamless integration into clinical workflows,” Bustami told TechCrunch.  He hopes his tech will help the U.S. combat the fact that the U.S. has one of the worst prenatal outcomes for mothers among high-income nations. Black women in particular face a very high rate of maternal deaths,   Bustami said that the prenatal ultrasound has become the “cornerstone” of …

Focused ultrasound could reveal how consciousness works

Focused ultrasound could reveal how consciousness works

Published by Jenni Sidey

Understanding how the brain creates conscious experience remains one of science’s most difficult challenges. Brain scans and behavior studies have linked awareness to certain neural patterns, but those links rarely show cause and effect. Activity can appear alongside a conscious experience without actually producing it. A new paper argues that progress now depends on tools that can directly test which brain structures generate conscious perception. That argument comes from researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Florida, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School. The team outlines how an emerging technology, transcranial focused ultrasound, could allow scientists to move beyond correlation and begin testing causality in healthy human brains. Their work appears in the journal Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews. The authors include Daniel Freeman of MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Brian Odegaard of the University of Florida, Seung-Schik Yoo of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and Matthias Michel of MIT’s Department of Philosophy and Linguistics. Together, they describe the paper as a roadmap for using ultrasound to probe the biological …