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  • Journal article
    Rintoul J, Butler C, Cleveland R, Grossman Net al., 2026,

    Non-invasive in vivo acoustoelectric neuromodulation and its contribution to ultrasound stimulation

    , Nature Communications, ISSN: 2041-1723

    Non-invasive brain stimulation offers therapeutic potential without surgery, yet existing electrical approaches lack spatial precision due to the long wavelengths of electric fields. Here we demonstrate acoustoelectric neuromodulation, a nonlinear interaction between applied acoustic and electric fields that generates spatially localized, low-frequency electric fields at the ultrasound focus. Using in vitro and in vivo mouse electrophysiology, we show motor evoked responses that depend on both the amplitude and frequency of the acoustoelectric field, with controls excluding purely acoustic or electrical origins. In vivo measurements show acoustoelectric potentials of ≈9 mV, corresponding to estimated focal electric fields of ~6 V/m at 500 kHz and 1 MPa acoustic pressure, with ~1.5 mm extrema spacing demonstrated in phantom experiments. Importantly, we identify an acoustoelectric contribution to conventional ultrasound stimulation, arising from interactions between ultrasound-induced electrical signals and propagating acoustic waves, establishing acoustoelectric neuromodulation as a distinct mechanism influencing ultrasound-based brain stimulation.

  • Journal article
    Carhart-Harris R, 2026,

    , Nature Communications, Vol: 17, ISSN: 2041-1723

    Psychedelics have robust effects on acute brain function and long-term behavior but whether they also cause enduring functional and anatomical brain changes is largely unknown. In an exploratory, placebo-controlled, within-subjects, electroencephalography (EEG), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) study in 28 healthy, entirely psychedelic-naive participants, anatomical and functional brain changes are detected from one-hour to one-month after a single high-dose (25 mg) of psilocybin. Increases in cognitive flexibility, psychological insight, and well-being are seen at one-month. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) done before and one-month after 25mg psilocybin reveals decreased axial diffusivity bilaterally in prefrontal-subcortical tracts that correlate with decreases in brain network modularity (fMRI) over the same month. Enduring functional brain changes are largely absent, but network modularity change (numerical decrease) negatively correlates with well-being change (significant increase), in line with previous findings in depression. Increased cortical signal entropy (EEG) at 1- and 2-hours post-dosing predicts improved psychological well-being at one-month. Next-day psychological insight mediates the entropy to well-being relationship. All effects are exclusive to 25mg psilocybin; no effects occur with a 1mg psilocybin placebo.

  • Journal article
    Agnorelli C, Peill J, Sawicka G, Kurtin D, Shatalina E, Ahmad K, Wall MB, Rua C, Godfrey K, Ertl N, Searle G, Zhou K, Osugo M, Weiss B, Greenway KT, Fagiolini A, Carhart-Harris R, Matthews PM, Rabiner EA, Nutt D, Erritzoe Det al., 2026,

    , J Cereb Blood Flow Metab

    We investigated ketamine's neuroplastic effects in healthy human subjects using integrated Positron Emission Tomography (PET)/Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) measures before and 1-8 days after a single psychedelic dose of ketamine (1 mg/kg, intravenous). Eleven male participants underwent two PET/MRI scans with [11C]-UCBJ (synaptic density/plasticity), 1H-MRS (glutamate and GABA) and resting-state fMRI (intrinsic brain activity, functional connectivity), before and after ketamine. While group-level analyses showed no significant increases in PET synaptic markers, ketamine administration resulted in significantly elevated glutamate levels within the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Functional connectivity analyses revealed reduced coupling between the ACC and the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and increased coupling between the ACC and the amygdala in the days following ketamine administration. Our multimodal analysis revealed that participants showing an increase in [11C]-UCBJ volume distribution (VT), a putative index of synaptic plasticity, showed a correlated reduction in intrinsic activity within regions belonging to the default mode network (DMN). By linking molecular, cellular and network-level changes, our results point to the DMN as a central hub where ketamine may reshape brain hierarchies in the long term, providing new directions for understanding its therapeutic mechanisms and developing targeted treatments.

  • Journal article
    Sil T, Selzam V, Peach RL, Tamas G, Deuschl G, Schreglmann SR, Volkmann J, Reich MM, Muthuraman Met al., 2026,

    , EXPERT SYSTEMS WITH APPLICATIONS, Vol: 299, ISSN: 0957-4174
  • Journal article
    Kurtin DL, Herlinger K, Hayes A, Hand L, Fonville L, Hill RG, Nutt DJ, Lingford-Hughes AR, Paterson LMet al., 2026,

    , Translational Psychiatry, Vol: 16, ISSN: 2158-3188

    One approach to addressing the immense unmet need for treatments of severe opioid use disorder (sOUD) is to understand more about associated changes in the brain’s reward circuitry. It has been shown that during reward anticipation in the Monetary Incentive Delay (MID) task, people with severe substance use disorder (SUD) show blunted responses in reward neural circuitry compared with healthy controls (HC). Conversely, drug-related cues result in heightened responses in the same neural reward circuitry in those with SUD compared with HC. However, it is unclear how such dysfunctional reward processing is related to neural correlates of other processes commonly dysregulated in addiction, such as attention and cognition. The aim of this work was to evaluate whether people with sOUD show different relationships between reward networks to networks that regulate cognition, attention, sensory processes, and more. Then, we evaluated whether there is a spatial relationship between differences in brain function and atlases of μ-opioid receptor (MOR) and dopamine D2 receptor (DRD2) availability. We collected fMRI data while people with sOUD receiving methadone (MD; n = 25) and HC (n = 22) completed the MID and cue reactivity tasks. We evaluated differences in functional connectivity (FC) and measures of brain state dynamics. Partial least squared (PLS) analysis computed the spatial relationship between FC metrics to MOR and D2DR availability. We found that MD participants generally exhibited weaker miFC compared to HC in both tasks except when comparing the difference in miFC during anticipation of monetary reward or drug related stimuli vs neutral stimuli. Contrasts between rewarding or drug-related to neutral stimuli showed MD participants had stronger miFC between reward/anti-reward networks to regions in the control network and default mode Network (DMN) in both tasks. Analysis of brain state dynamics showed the DMN was more prevalent i

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Dr Nir Grossman
Senior Lecturer in Dementia Research and Group Leader at the UK DRI

nirg@imperial.ac.uk
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