Gentle brain ultrasound may help ease delusions in schizophrenia
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Targeting a deep brain region with sound waves may safely reduce delusions in people with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, initial study results show. These conditions can cause people to hear or see things that are not there and develop beliefs that are firmly held but not true.
Led by NYU Langone Health psychiatrists and engineers, the study explored a technique called transcranial ultrasound stimulation in 10 men and women with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder who had ongoing symptoms despite drug treatment. The approach uses gentle, focused sound waves to boost or suppress brain cell activity in regions that are otherwise hard to access without surgery or other invasive procedures.
The findings revealed that a single 10-minute ultrasound session led to a modest but clear drop in delusion scores, with an average decrease of 1.2 points on a standard clinical scale used to evaluate delusion severity. By contrast, when the same patients received a sham version of the treatment, their delusion scores rose by an average of 0.4 points.
All side effects, such as fatigue, headache and brief increases in psychotic symptoms, were mild and short-lived and did not differ between the active and sham treatments.
"Our results offer early evidence that a single session of transcranial ultrasound stimulation can safely 'tune' a brain circuit linked to psychosis and lead to a noticeable drop in delusions," said study lead author Wei Qi, a clinical assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine.
A report on the findings is published in the journal npj Acoustics.
Targeting a circuit linked to delusions
"Unlike other emerging techniques that modulate brain circuits, transcranial ultrasound stimulation offers a unique opportunity to precisely target very small regions that affect thinking and behavior," said study co-senior author Shy Shoham, a professor of neuroscience and ophthalmology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and director of the Tech4Health Institute at NYU Langone.
Experts have previously explored the technique to treat mental health conditions such as anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, and to improve thinking and memory in people with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
In the new study, the researchers attempted, for the first time, to address schizophrenia symptoms by aiming the sound waves at a region of the brain called the globus pallidus internus, part of a circuit that helps control movement, thought and emotion. Past work by Qi and colleagues found that problems in this circuit were associated with delusions and predicted how well patients responded to medication.
The investigation is the first to show early signs that this approach may not only be safe but also help ease symptoms of schizophrenia and related brain disorders, said Shoham.
Comparing real and sham sessions
Each participant received one real session of transcranial ultrasound stimulation and one pretend session, in which the device was placed on the head and turned on but the sound waves were blocked so they could not reach the brain. The sessions were delivered one week apart in a random order, and neither the participants nor the study team members who rated the patients' symptoms knew which was the real treatment.
Using an MRI scan as a guide to the globus pallidus internus, the team applied the ultrasound waves for 10 minutes in 30-second on-off cycles.
Symptoms were assessed before, during and up to seven days after each session using a series of rating scales that measured delusions, hallucinations, thinking and memory, and any side effects.
Notably, the difference in delusion scores between the real and pretend sessions persisted for as long as a week (the end of the study period).
Larger studies to test repeated treatment
"These promising early findings suggest that further work is needed to establish whether targeted ultrasound could one day supplement or even replace standard medicines for schizophrenia," said study senior author Donald C. Goff. "This work also demonstrates that focused ultrasound can be used to examine brain circuits relevant to psychiatric illness."
Goff, the Marvin Stern professor of psychiatry and vice chair of research in the Department of Psychiatry at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, said that the psychiatry researchers and Shoham's team of biomedical engineers next plan to assess the technique in more patients and to test repeated ultrasound sessions over longer periods.
Future studies will also use advanced brain imaging to customize the ultrasound intensity for each participant and to confirm that the globus pallidus internus is being successfully targeted, added Goff, who also leads NYU Langone's Schizophrenia Research Group.
More information
Transcranial ultrasound stimulation of the right globus pallidus interna in schizophrenia: A randomized, sham- controlled pilot study, npj Acoustics (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s44384-026-00076-3
Key medical concepts
DelusionsSchizophreniaSchizoaffective disorder
Clinical categories
PsychiatryPsychology & Mental health Provided by NYU Langone Health Who's behind this story?
Swati Mestri
Swati Mestri holds a bachelor's degree in Electronics Engineering and has worked as a content editor since 2019. She has experience editing research documents across technology, health care, and materials science, and has a particular interest in technology and space. Full profile →
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