Influence of Interval between Acoustic Pulses on Repetitively Activated Cells

Focused ultrasound (FUS) is a promising approach for non-invasive neurostimulation. Cells can be repetitively activated as a result of repeatedly applied focused ultrasound. However, the factors affecting FUS-activated repetitive cell-response remain unknown. To investigate how the interval between acoustic pulses affects the repetitively activated cell-response, cells were exposed to different FUS pulses (1.0 MHz frequency, 5-300 ms duration, 0.3-0.45 MPa PNP and 1-6min interval between pulses). Our results show that when the interval between pulses was less than 2 min, few cells were repetitively activated. With the increasing interval between pulses from 1 to 10 min, the proportion of continuously repetitively-activated cells increased gradually. These findings provide new insights into the controllable ultrasound neurostimulation.