Abstract
Non-pharmacological and non-invasive neuromodulation of selective brain areas would provide unprecedented opportunities in neuroscience and neurotherapeutics. Low-intensity focused ultrasound (FUS) has emerged as a novel neuromodulation modality with its exquisite spatial selectivity and depth penetration compared to conventional non-invasive neuromodulation methods, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and transcranial electrical stimulation (tES). FUS in pulsed mode also provides bi-modal (both excitatory and suppressive) neuromodulation capability. In this talk, I will present various region-specific FUS-mediated neuromodulatory effects that have been demonstrated on animal species (rodents, rabbits, sheep, and primates) and humans. The evidence of successful neuromodulation will be given by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), electrophysiological recordings (EEG/EMG), positron emission tomography (PET), and direct behavioral responses. I will also introduce some of our recent research on FUS-mediated neuromodulation at KIST.
Hyungmin Kim, PhD
Bionics Research Center, Biomedical Research Division
Korea Institute of Science and Technology
Hyungmin Kim, PhD
Hyungmin Kim received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Seoul National University (Seoul, Korea) in 1998 and 2001, respectively. He then entered the medical industry, spending six years developing medical imaging software and surgical navigation systems at Cybermed, Inc. (Seoul, Korea). Later, he completed his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Bern (Bern, Switzerland) in 2011, while working as a research scientist at the Institute of Surgical Technology and Biomechanics (Bern, Switzerland). He subsequently worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Radiology at Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA). He is currently the head of the Bionics Research Center and a principal research scientist at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (Seoul, Korea), as well as a professor in the Division of Bio-Medical Science & Technology at the University of Science and Technology. His current research interests include focused ultrasound, image-guided therapy, and brain-machine interface.