We're sunsetting PodQuest on 2025-07-28. Thank you for your support!
Export Podcast Subscriptions
cover of episode Ultrasound Isn’t Just for Pregnancy. How It’s Helping Treat the Brain.

Ultrasound Isn’t Just for Pregnancy. How It’s Helping Treat the Brain.

2024/5/10
logo of podcast WSJ’s The Future of Everything

WSJ’s The Future of Everything
AI Chapters Transcript
Chapters
This chapter explores the use of ultrasound to deliver treatments to the brain without the need for major surgery. It discusses the blood-brain barrier, its role in preventing drug delivery to the brain, and how ultrasound technology combined with microbubbles can temporarily open this barrier, enabling drug delivery and potentially revolutionizing the treatment of brain diseases.
  • Ultrasound can be used to temporarily open the blood-brain barrier.
  • This allows drugs to reach the brain without surgery.
  • The method uses microbubbles that resonate when exposed to ultrasound, creating pressure and loosening the blood-brain barrier.

Shownotes Transcript

Ultrasound is known for its use in imaging during pregnancy. But new advancements in the technology suggest that in the future, ultrasound could be used to disrupt the blood-brain barrier. This would allow doctors to more easily diagnose and directly treat illnesses like brain cancer without major surgery. WSJ’s Danny Lewis and Charlotte Gartenberg examine the new ways that ultrasound could be used more specifically and subtly to deliver accurate diagnoses and precise treatments.

What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts) or Spotify), or email us: [email protected])

Sign up for the WSJ's free The Future of Everything newsletter) .

Further reading:

New Ultrasound Therapy Could Help Treat Alzheimer’s, Cancer) 

Treatment Breakthrough for an Intractable Brain Cancer) 

The ‘Mini Brains’ solving medical mysteries and raising concerns)

We Can Now See the Brain Like Never Before) 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices)