Starting Sound

The whistle blows and the game starts. Researchers are hoping they too can use a burst of sound to spark a flurry of activity, just on a smaller scale. Previous work showed that it was possible to use ultrasound to activate cells in microscopic worms by adding particular proteins to neurons [brain cells], but repeating the feat in mammal cells proved more difficult. A recent study tested hundreds of human proteins and found one sensitive to an ultrasound frequency well known to be safe for humans. TRPA1 is a protein that responds to the environment to control tiny channels in cells. The team found that when added to human neurons in the lab or living mouse brains (pictured, TRPA1 in red), it can activate neurons in response to ultrasound. This could eventually enable deep brain stimulation or pacemakers in patients without the need for surgically implanted devices.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Marc Duque, Corinne A. Lee-Kubl and Yusuf Tufail, and colleagues
• Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, La Jolla, CA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, February 2022