Focused ultrasound addiction treatment drew the attention of a Vermont family after Linda McNulty saw a televised report in early 2024 about West Virginia University research involving addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. Her daughter, Erin McNulty, had a long history of substance use, including years of methamphetamine use, according to Wired.
The case is a window into an experimental line of research, not evidence that ultrasound cured McNulty’s addiction. The available reporting does not say whether she received treatment, describe her outcome, or provide study results, follow-up, adverse-event data, or regulatory approval for addiction.
Wired reports that the work is associated with Ali Rezai, executive chair of WVU’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. Rezai’s previous work includes deep-brain stimulation, an invasive procedure in which surgeons place electrodes in deep brain regions through the skull. He has performed more than 3,000 such operations over roughly three decades, Wired reported.
How does focused ultrasound addiction treatment work?
Focused ultrasound uses an array of sound-wave emitters to aim many beams through an intact skull. A voltage makes piezoelectric crystals vibrate, producing high-frequency waves. Each beam carries limited energy on its route through bone and tissue; energy becomes greatest where the beams meet at a selected deep-brain target.
That geometry is the attraction. According to Wired, modern systems can target an area with millimeter-scale precision without an incision or implanted hardware. The report says ultrasound can reach deep structures such as the nucleus accumbens, part of the brain’s reward circuitry, which other noninvasive approaches including transcranial magnetic stimulation cannot reach in the same way.
For the addiction research, the relevant approach is low-intensity focused ultrasound, which Wired says can alter neural activity. Researchers were testing it in people with addiction and Alzheimer’s disease. That is materially different from using ultrasound as a heat source to destroy tissue.
Sound waves are not one treatment
High-intensity focused ultrasound concentrates enough energy at its focal point to generate heat and make a small lesion. Wired reports that this form has approved uses for conditions including uterine fibroids, certain prostate cancers, and some Parkinson’s symptoms that medicines do not control.
A University of Kansas Health System video shows the high-intensity version being used for essential tremor: MRI guidance and temperature monitoring help clinicians heat a target in the thalamus and create a lesion. That outpatient procedure should not be treated as evidence for low-intensity ultrasound in methamphetamine addiction. The mechanisms, intended effects, and clinical questions are different.
The available account leaves the questions that decide whether WVU’s addiction work holds up: how many people were studied, what comparison treatment was used, how long participants were followed, what side effects occurred, and whether any changes in cravings or drug use lasted. Until those data are reported, the technology is a research prospect, not a demonstrated fix for substance-use disorder.
This story draws on original reporting from WIRED.
