Neuromodulation of the Cerebellum Using Electrical and Ultrasonic Stimulation

6th October 2021

Timing : 1 pm EST

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For a list of all talks at the NanoBio seminar Series Fall'21, see here


The cerebellum has been overlooked for its potential for neuromodulation for decades. Traditionally thought of as critical for motor coordination, now anatomical, clinical and imaging evidence indicate that the cerebellum also has central roles in cognition and emotion. Focused Ultrasound (FUS) Stimulation and transcranial AC Stimulation (tACS) are two non-invasive brain modulation methods that have great potentials for clinical application and provide ideal tools for cerebellar stimulation. FUS has excellent focusing and steering capabilities while tACS has the advantage of ease of application and the inexpensive equipment required.
Our objective is to develop effective and translational modulation paradigms of the cerebellum both by direct stimulation of the cerebellar nuclei (CN) using FUS and indirect modulation of the CN via electrical stimulation of the cerebellar cortex. In my talk, I will present single cell spiking data from anesthetized rat preparations showing that the Purkinje cells of the cerebellar cortex and that of the deep cerebellar nuclei can be entrained using both tACS and FUS. Some novel modulation paradigms that can lead to more sophisticated entrainment of cellular activity will also be discussed that can emerge from combinations of the two techniques.



Snow
Mesut Sahin, PhD
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Mesut Sahin received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Istanbul Technical University in 1986. After graduation, he had industrial experience working at a telecommunication company for three years. He received the M.S. and a Ph.D. degrees in 1993 and 1998 both in Biomedical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University. After post-doctoral training at the same institute, he joined Louisiana Tech University as an Assistant Professor in 2001. He has been on the faculty of Biomedical Engineering at New Jersey Institute of Technology since 2005, and currently is a Full Professor. His research interests are mainly in neural modulation and development of novel neural prosthetic approaches. He has authored more than 90 peer-reviewed publications, including a textbook on Bioinstrumentation and three patents. Dr. Sahin is an Associate Editor for IEEE Tran. on Biomedical Circuits and Systems and for Frontiers in Neuroscience-Neuroprosthetics, and a Senior Member of IEEE/EMBS.