I find this really interesting in light of reports of Havana Syndrome theorized to be the result of sonic weaponry in American government workers overseas. “

I find this really interesting in light of reports of Havana Syndrome theorized to be the result of sonic weaponry in American government workers overseas. “ Experiments investigating tFUS in rodents have recently found that induced excitability changes in the brain can be, at least partially, due to an indirect effect of auditory stimulation, which was eliminated by removal of the cochlear fluid (Guo et al., 2018). Additionally, Sato et al. (2018) found that temporary chemical deafness could reduce the effects of tFUS on the brain. These studies show that important confounds can lead to brain activation through indirect pathways, but do not negate the notion that tFUS can also influence the brain directly. Experiments with organisms that lack auditory systems, like Xenopus oocyte (the “clawed frog”), show the effects of tFUS on neural activity (Kubanek et al., 2016), and ultrasound also influences neural activity and causes spike trains in slice preparations (Tyler et al., 2008). In humans, tFUS has produced tactile sensations (Lee et al., 2016a) and visual phosphenes (Lee et al., 2016b) with corresponding focal tissue activation that is hard to explain by activation through ascending auditory activation. Future experiments will need to better control unconscious and conscious auditory effects for ultrasound neuromodulation experiments on mood.”