Ultrasound targets chronic pain, depression

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah. (Ivanhoe Newswire) - Chronic pain and treatment-resistant depression both impact millions of people.

Both can be debilitating and both can leave people feeling hopeless, impacting daily activities, relationships, and jobs.

Now scientists are turning to sonic relief, a drug-free way to relieve the pain of both chronic pain and depression.

Anna Hansen loves to watch her seedlings grow. But chronic pain forced her to move her garden inside.

"I grow house plants since I couldn't garden anymore as much," she explained.

Suffering from endometriosis since she was just 15, Hansen spent years on opioids. But still the pain persisted.

University of Utah biomedical engineers Tom Riis, PhD and Jan Kubanek, PhD have developed the diadem device that uses ultrasound to target areas deep inside the brain associated with chronic pain and depression.

"These people, like with chronic pain or depression, they're just caught in some sort of loop of brain activity that's pathological," said Riis.

"For the first time, we can treat or at least alleviate the symptoms of many of these people," explained Kubanek.

After mapping the brain with an MRI, diadem then uses 252 beams of sound waves to target areas as small as a peanut.

"After 30 seconds of sonication, they'll be able to tell, like, I feel more relaxed. I feel a little bit lighter," stated Riis.

In the chronic pain trial, 75% of participants experienced meaningful reduction immediately following treatment. For depression, 58% were in remission after one session. One patient remained in remission for over 44 days.

Hansen said she felt immediate relief and became pain-free within a week.

"I feel like I can do things because at first, you're very cautious. You don't want to do anything that could trigger it to come back. It's given me back myself and so it feels great," she told Ivanhoe.

Researchers believe this ultrasound device will not only help treat chronic pain and depression, but also PTSD and addiction.

Traditional drug and device development can be slow and expensive. These researchers are working to speed up the approval of ultrasound therapy for chronic pain and depression by pursuing dual strategy with the FDA. By providing strong safety evidence they could make it available sooner, possibly even next year. By making ultrasound therapy affordable and accessible, this innovative technology might change how these conditions are treated.