INVESTIGATION OF THE IMPACT OF ACOUSTIC FORCING ON NEURAL NETWORK ACTIVITY

Abstract

The increase in the prevalence of neurological disorders, now approximated to affect 15% of the worldwide population, has highlighted the need to fundamentally understand how neuronal networks function in normal and diseased conditions. Acoustic forcing has been identified as a method to advance the fabrication and understanding of how neural networks function via cell patterning and neuromodulation. This phenomenon occurs as acoustic waves at ultrasonic frequencies impart a force on a target through a medium. Cell patterning via acoustic forcing has led to the development of biomimetic neural organoids. Neuromodulation, via acoustic forcing, has been shown to stimulate neuronal activity and is popularly researched in transcranial focused ultrasound. A concern in transcranial focused ultrasound is standing wave formation, and thus pressure gradients, in the brain. The mechanism of how standing wave formation impacts neuronal network activity remains unknown. This thesis elucidates the impact of acoustic standing waves on large-scale neuronal activity through the fabrication and application of a standing-wave generating device on assembled ReNcell human neural progenitor-derived neural networks. The preliminary results showed younger networks to have large decreases in activity while older networks saw minimal change following acoustic forcing application. Additionally, varying intensity from did not affect network activity of older networks during acoustic forcing application.