Ten minutes of gentle ultrasound eased stubborn delusions in a first-of-its-kind pilot

For people with schizophrenia whose delusions persist despite medication, options are few and often hard to live with. A team at NYU Langone — Wei Qi, Shy Shoham and Donald Goff among them — has tested something radically gentler: ultrasound aimed through the skull at a small deep-brain region, no surgery and no implants. In a peer-reviewed pilot study of 10 people, published in npj Acoustics, a single 10-minute session eased delusion scores by an average of 1.2 points, compared with a slight rise after a pretend (sham) session, and the benefit lasted up to a week with only mild, short-lived side effects. Ten people is a beginning, not a verdict — larger trials with repeated sessions are planned — but a safe, non-invasive nudge in the right direction is exactly what this field has been waiting for.

SDG 3 · Good health and well-being — Mechanism: tech innovation