High-Fidelity Transcranial Ultrasound Multi-focal Stimulation via Physics-Aware Hologram Technique

Abstract

Transcranial ultrasound stimulation (TUS) offers non-invasive deep-brain neuromodulation with high spatial precision, but reliably generating complex multi-target acoustic fields through the skull remains challenging. Here, we introduce a physics-aware hologram technique that directly generates fabrication-ready holographic implementations while preserving consistency between numerical field synthesis and physical acoustic realization. The method enables single-, dual-, and tri-focal transcranial stimulation patterns and was validated through in silico simulations, ex vivo skull measurements, and in vivo experiments. Compared with representative state-of-the-art methods, the proposed approach improved focal reconstruction and energy confinement at intended targets while reducing off-target acoustic leakage. In a neuropathic-pain mouse model, simultaneous bilateral stimulation of thalamic nuclei reduced c-Fos expression and showed preliminary improvements in pain-related behavioral responses. These findings support the use of fabrication-consistent holographic design for spatially localized and reproducible multi-target transcranial neuromodulation.