Bringing FUS to Ghent University Hospital
The aim of this year’s running event is to raise money to bring an innovative medical therapy to Ghent University. Transcranial focused ultrasound or so-called TUS is a non-invasive therapeutic technology that uses ultrasonic energy to target tissue deep in the body without incision or radiation. It is therefore currently investigated to target specific brain regions that are part of a brain disorder process. The use of ultrasonic energy allows to induce small lesions within the brain or transient changes in brain functioning. The advantage of the technique for patients is that opening the skull for therapy is not required, avoiding in this way the complications associated with open brain surgery. Optimization of the technique still requires extensive multidisciplinary neuroscientific research and the aim of our fundraising events is to gather funds for the dedicated research area on TUS to treat brain disorders. In the future TUS may potentially help patients with epilepsy, brain tumors, movement disorders and stroke.
The funding of last Run4Brain events allowed us to initiate TUS research at Ghent University. Since then, many steps have been taken to set up new research protocols. A review was published regarding the use of TUS as a treatment for epilepsy (Review article: Recent Advances in the Use of Focused Ultrasound in the Treatment of Epilepsy). Recently, we initiated a collaboration with Stanford University to set up a preclinical TUS research line, therefore two dedicated research setups were purchased. Besides, a TUS device for human applications was added to the 4Brain armamentarium, which will be used to investigate the effectiveness of TUS in healthy volunteers and epilepsy patients.
Moreover, Ghent University is co-founder of the BENEFUS consortium, a collaboration between Belgian and Dutch academics aiming to bring this new therapy to patients.