A new study, published in the journal npj Acoustics, suggests that focused sound waves may help reduce delusions in people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder.<\/p>\n
Researchers from NYU Langone Health tested a technique called transcranial ultrasound stimulation on 10 people whose symptoms continued despite taking medication.<\/p>\n
The technique uses gentle sound waves to change activity in specific areas of the brain without surgery.<\/p>\n
During the study, each participant received both the real and pretend treatments, with a week between the sessions. Neither the participants nor the researchers assessing their symptoms knew which treatment was real.<\/p>\n
Using MRI scans as a guide, the researchers directed sound waves towards a deep brain region called the globus pallidus internus. The treatment lasted 10 minutes, with the sound waves switched on and off every 30 seconds.<\/p>\n
The researchers assessed the participants’ delusions, hallucinations, thinking, memory and side effects before and after each session.<\/p>\n
The study found that a single 10-minute treatment led to a small reduction in delusions, which lasted for upto a week.<\/p>\n
On average, patients’ scores on a scale measuring delusion severity dropped by 1.2 points.<\/p>\n
In comparison, their scores increased by 0.4 points after a pretend treatment that did not send sound waves into the brain.<\/p>\n
Also, the side effects, including tiredness, headaches and brief increases in symptoms, were mild and did not last long.<\/p>\n
In future studies, researchers plan to use advanced brain scans to adjust the strength of the sound waves for each person and ensure they reach the correct brain area.<\/p>\n
Although the results are encouraging, the study involved only 10 people. Larger studies are needed to find out whether this treatment is safe and effective for more patients over a longer period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new study, published in the journal npj Acoustics, suggests that focused sound waves may help reduce delusions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648470,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-648469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648469\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}