116. Elsa Fouragnan: Transcranial Ultrasound Stimulation, brain surgery, and French Polynesia

Sep 8, 2025

Ask episode

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

Elsa Fouragnan is an Associate Professor and UKRI Future Leader Fellow at the University of Plymouth. We talk mainly about her work on focussed transcranial ultrasound stimulation, a new non-invasive way other stimulating (human) brains, including deep areas that can't be reached with TMS. We also discuss her childhood in French Polynesia, how she started doing research, what it's like seeing a brain during surgery, and much more.

This was the first episode I recorded in-person. The audio quality is really good, with the minor exception that I made a really silly error during editing, such that quiet parts are sometimes not entirely audible. A few words are not audible, but this shouldn't affect comprehension.

BJKS Podcast is a podcast about neuroscience, psychology, and anything vaguely related, hosted by Benjamin James Kuper-Smith.

Support the show: https://geni.us/bjks-patreon

Timestamps

0:00:00: Elsa's childhood in French Polynesia and in mainland France

0:10:25: Why Elsa studied engineering and started doing research

0:19:04: How Elsa started working on Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation

0:23:08: What is Transcranial Focused Ultrasound Stimulation?

0:28:20: Is it safe?

0:36:12: What can you do with it/what kind of stimulations is it?

0:53:41: The practicalities of using TUS

1:04:42: What it's like to see brain surgery in the operating theatre

1:10:11: Back to the skull being a problem and which brains regions can be reached with TUS?

1:18:49: The future of TUS

1:27:59: A book or paper more people should read

1:30:13: Something Elsa wishes she'd learnt sooner

1:34:51: Advice for PhD students/postdocs

Podcast links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-pod
BlueSky: https://geni.us/pod-bsky

Elsa's links

Website: https://geni.us/fouragnan-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/fouragnan-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/fouragnan-bsky

Ben's links

Website: https://geni.us/bjks-web
Google Scholar: https://geni.us/bjks-scholar
BlueSky: https://geni.us/bjks-bsky

References and links

Ua Pou: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ua_Pou

Folloni, Verhagen, Mars, Fouragnan, ... & Sallet (2019). Manipulation of subcortical and deep cortical activity in the primate brain using transcranial focused ultrasound stimulation. Neuron.

Liptrot (2015). The Outrun.

Murphy & Fouragnan (2024). The future of transcranial ultrasound as a precision brain interface. PLoS Biology.

Yoo, Mittelstein, Hurt, Lacroix & Shapiro (2022). Focused ultrasound excites cortical neurons via mechanosensitive calcium accumulation and ion channel amplification. Nature Communications.

Yaakub, ... & Fouragnan (2024). Non-invasive Ultrasound Deep Neuromodulation of the Human Nucleus Accumbens Increases Win-Stay Behaviour. BioRxiv.