Treating the Brain With Ultrasound and a Ceramic 'Window'

The transparent ceramic "window." (Credit: David Baillot/UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering) One of the biggest problems in neuroscience is very simple — access. The brain is encased in the bony cranium, and many regions are buried beneath layers of brain tissue, making any intrusion potentially dangerous. Physically probing into the brain is also extremely difficult, and because you can't just cut it open and sew it back up afterward as you might another organ, surgeons would benefit from less invasive methods. Now they might have one. With a special kind of ceramic, researchers from the University of California-Riverside have created a small "window" that can be implanted in the skull to allow for ultrasound therapies. Bone doesn't allow the ultrasonic sound waves through, but this special blend of yttrium and zirconium does. Small patches of the ceramic could be surgically inserted into the skulls of patients undergoing ultrasound ...