Advancing ultrasound and microbubble-mediated drug delivery in the brain and spinal cord

When combined with intravenously administered microbubbles, ultrasound can transiently open the so-called ‘blood-brain barrier’ (BBB) and ‘blood-spinal cord barrier’ (BSCB), resulting in increased vascular permeability to enable delivery of therapeutics to the central nervous system (CNS). Thus this technique holds transformative potential for patients suffering from CNS disorders. Achieving successful opening of these barriers while mitigating lasting tissue changes requires control over the transmitted sound, as well as knowledge of the interaction of the transmitted sound field with the microbubbles. In this talk I will review contributions made to monitoring and controlling BBB opening, as well as efforts by my group to translate this intervention to the spinal cord. Recent preclinical in vivo findings and ex vivo results in human vertebrae will be reported.