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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

And if you want the full backstory, big thanks to Keith Murphy and Charles Caskey for having me on the FUS Forward podcast to share the journey and pineapple juice addiction :): open.spotify.com/episode/0y2W...

open.spotify.com

Ep. 3 Elsa Fouragnan precision hacking of brain reward systems

Spotify video

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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

This points to a new way forward for exploring deep circuits, mapping how they support cognition, testing brain–cognition theories more directly, and opening new paths for mental health, all with non invasive ultrasound.

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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) in the same region disrupts these very processes, giving us a rare comparison and strong evidence that we were perturbing the NAcc itself rather than nearby structures. A region once considered unreachable without neurosurgery is now in reach non invasively.

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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

We found that TUS can selectively modulate the NAcc and shift both neural activity and behaviour. Stimulating this region changed BOLD responses tied to reward expectations and altered how people learned from outcomes, all supported by a computational RL model.

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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 28/11/2025

New study out today in Nature Comms: www.nature.com/articles/s41..., in which we set out to test whether ultrasound could influence the reward-related learning computations of the nucleus accumbens, building on decades of work on dopaminergic prediction error and reinforcement learning. And it did.

nature.com

Non-invasive ultrasonic neuromodulation of the human nucleus accumbens impacts reward sensitivity - Nature Communications

This study shows that non-invasive ultrasound to the human nucleus accumbens can modulate deep brain activity and enhance reward-guided learning, offering a potential alternative to invasive neuromodu...

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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

A brain injury was reported in a trial using ultrasound, framed as low-intensity TUS. Kim Butts Pauly and I reviewed the case and disagreed with how it's presented. Key acoustic data are missing. Case: doi.org/10.1016/j.br... Letters: www.elsa-fouragnan.com/blog | web.stanford.edu/~kimbutts/Le...

sciencedirect.com

Brain Injury During Focused Ultrasound Neuromodulation for Substance Use Disorder

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Elsa Fouragnan @efouragnan.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

So thrilled and humbled to be part of a £6.5M project funded by the @aria-research.bsky.social. Together with NHS Trust and Forest Neurotech, we’re trialing a whole-brain interface using ultrasound which could transform mental health! 🔊🧠 @bricplymouth.bsky.social @plymuni.bsky.social

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