Focused ultrasound pulsation wakes man up from coma - Essentially "jump-starting" his neurons

08/25/2016 - 14:44

Stuart Wolpert | Image: Martin Monti


A 25-year-old man recovering from a coma has made remarkable progress following a treatment at UCLA to jump-start his brain using ultrasound. The technique uses sonic stimulation to excite the neurons in the thalamus, an egg-shaped structure that serves as the brain’s central hub for processing information.

“It’s almost as if we were jump-starting the neurons back into function,” said Martin Monti, the study’s lead author and a UCLA associate professor of psychology and neurosurgery.

READ MORE ON UCLA | NEWSROOM