{"id":19208,"date":"2023-03-29T14:01:08","date_gmt":"2023-03-29T18:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fusfoundation.org\/?post_type=sw_disease_condition&#038;p=19208"},"modified":"2025-12-19T15:33:41","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T19:33:41","slug":"autism","status":"publish","type":"sw_disease_condition","link":"https:\/\/www.fusfoundation.org\/diseases-and-conditions\/autism\/","title":{"rendered":"Autism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-focused-ultrasound-therapy\">Focused Ultrasound Therapy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Focused ultrasound is a therapeutic technology with the potential to improve the quality of life and decrease the cost of care for patients with autism. This novel technology focuses beams of ultrasound energy precisely and accurately on targets deep in the body without damaging surrounding normal tissue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>How it Works<\/strong><br>Where the beams converge, focused ultrasound produces a temporary blood brain barrier disruption that enables therapeutic gene delivery in a small animal model of autism. Another mechanism is using neuromodulation to stimulate the right parietal lobe to decrease the neural rigidity, which reduced social and non-social autistic behaviors adult patients with autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are no curative treatment options autism, and much of the care is supportive. For certain patients, focused ultrasound could provide a much needed, effective treatment option. While significant work has been accomplished, there is still much to be done before this technology will be widely available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Advantages<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Focused ultrasound is noninvasive, so it does not carry added concerns like surgical wound healing or infection.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Focused ultrasound can reach the desired target without damaging surrounding tissue.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It can be repeated, if necessary.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Clinical Trials<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>At the present time, there are no clinical trials recruiting patients for focused ultrasound treatment of autism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Foundation updates these pages regularly, but with the increasing number of clinical trials, we want to be sure that our audience has the latest information available. Therefore, we also added the website search information for the above trials. If you click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clinicaltrials.gov\/search?cond=Autism&amp;term=focused%20ultrasound\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>, it will take you to the latest information available from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.clinicaltrials.gov\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>https:\/\/www.clinicaltrials.gov\/<\/strong><\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Regulatory Approval and Reimbursement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Focused ultrasound treatment for autism is not yet approved by regulatory bodies or covered by medical insurance companies<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-notable-papers\">Notable Papers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Polte S,\u00a0Klingmann\u00a0L,\u00a0Se\u00dfmann\u00a0A, Schwichtenberg S, Herrmann CS, Witt K,\u00a0Roheger\u00a0M. <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/41295447\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Neuromodulatory\u00a0Effects of Transcranial Pulse Stimulation (TPS) in Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders-A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis<\/strong><\/a>. Neurol Int. 2025 Nov 18;17(11):188.\u00a0doi: 10.3390\/neurolint17110188. PMID: 41295447\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Darmani G, Ramezanpour H, Sarica C, Annirood R, Grippe T, Nankoo JF, Fomenko A, Santyr B, Zeng K, Vetkas A, Samuel N, Davidson B, Fasano A, Lankarany M, Kalia SK, Pichardo S, Lozano AM, Chen R. <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/40108143\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Individualized<\/strong>\u202f<strong>non<\/strong>&#8211;<strong>invasive<\/strong>\u202f<strong>deep<\/strong>\u202f<strong>brain<\/strong>\u202f<strong>stimulation\u202fof <\/strong>the\u202f<strong>basal<\/strong>\u202f<strong>ganglia<\/strong>\u202fusing\u202f<strong>transcranial<\/strong>\u202f<strong>ultrasound<\/strong>\u202f<strong>stimulation<\/strong><\/a>. Nat Commun. 2025 Mar 19;16(1):2693. doi: 10.1038\/s41467-025-57883-7.PMID:\u202f40108143\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shen Y, Li N, Sun S, Dong L, Wang Y, Chang L, Zhang X, Wang F&nbsp; <a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/36117626\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Non-invasive, targeted, and non-viral&nbsp;ultrasound-mediated brain-derived neurotrophic factor plasmid delivery for treatment of&nbsp;autism&nbsp;in a rat model<\/strong><\/a>. Front Neurosci. 2022 Sep 1;16:986571. doi: 10.3389\/fnins.2022.986571. eCollection 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" class=\"ek-link\" href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/?term=%28%22focused+ultrasound%22+OR+HIFU%29+and+%22autism%22&amp;sort=date\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Click here<\/strong><\/a><strong> for additional references from PubMed.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_searchwp_excluded":"","_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":1,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"sw_disease_condition_cat":[6,259],"sw_disease_condition_stage":[14],"class_list":["post-19208","sw_disease_condition","type-sw_disease_condition","status-publish","hentry","sw_disease_condition_cat-neurological","sw_disease_condition_cat-psychiatric"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.2) - 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