Elsa Fouragnan
(she/her) UKRI FLF - Professor in Neuroscience. Started doing robotic/AI before it was cool, moved on to Neuroscience and now obsessed with Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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...
- 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...
- 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
