Precision Radio Waves May Help Counter Brain Diseases

NEW YORK, March 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- A new study found that precise application of radio waves can change the activity of brain cells in ways that could counter neurological conditions.

Led by researchers at NYU Langone Health, the work introduces a technique called Transcranial Radio Frequency Stimulation (TRFS), which promises to treat neurological diseases with neither the invasiveness of surgery nor the frequent failure of drugs as patients (e.g., 30 percent of people with depression and epilepsy) develop resistance.

Published online recently in the journal Brain Stimulation, the study describes the use of radio frequency, or RF, energy, which is effective at penetrating biological tissue. The study says TRFS could overcome the limits of older technologies because it can, depending on the nature of the disease, target either a small part of the brain or the entire organ, and it can dial nerve signaling up or down.   

"Our study is the first to demonstrate in live mice the potential of the technology to be highly effective for adjusting neural activity," said senior study author György Buzsáki, MD, PhD, the Biggs Professor of Neuroscience in the Department of Neuroscience at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. "The need for better, noninvasive techniques is becoming ever more urgent, with 1 in 3 people globally affected by some form of brain disorder during their lifetime," said Dr. Buzsáki, also faculty in the Institute for Translational Neuroscience. 

Radio frequency waves have long been used in the brain as part of MRI imaging, which creates images by imposing and tracking changes in the energy states of atoms. Radio waves are also used to create heat that destroys cancer cells. Despite these uses, RF energy has not been explored for direct brain stimulation. 

Although various transcranially delivered effects—electric (direct or alternating current), magnetic, and ultrasound—are used routinely for direct stimulation, each is limited by the nature of the energy used, how it interacts with tissue, or the head's anatomy. Energy sent through contacts placed on the scalp, for instance, cannot focus on one small area. Stimulation applied by electromagnetic coils decays quickly with distance and cannot reach deep brain regions. The skull can interfere with ultrasound, causing side effects.

The study authors said they overcame such limitations by designing small, customized antennae made from the tips of coaxial cables. These antennae transmit high-frequency signals to precisely direct RF energy to deep-brain locations. RF delivered in this way heats targeted brain tissue, which changes how easily charged ions flow in and out of brain cells and influences signal strength. 

Among the study's main findings was that TRFS could be used to either suppress or encourage the signaling activity of brain cells. Using a technique called 1-photon fiber photometry, the team recorded local heat-induced brain cell activity changes in study mice. The results showed that applying RF energy to the intact, normal brain, which they termed the "pristine mode," had a particularly strong effect on brain cells called inhibitory interneurons.

Specialized to connect cells in circuits, inhibitory interneurons serve as the brakes on messages that travel from neuron to neuron, sculpting the brain signals into actions, perceptions, and thoughts. The fact that RF energy has a strong effect on these cells is profound, the authors said, because suppressing them has been shown to counter depression, chronic pain, and anxiety disorders.

RF energy raised the temperature in normal interneurons and led to dose-dependent suppression of activity. The temperature changes were within the small, normal range for healthy cells (not in the damaging range). 

In other experiments, the team showed that RF energy could also achieve the opposite effect, encouraging signaling levels in specifically targeted cell types. Called "RF-genetics mode," this second approach combined RF energy with genetic engineering that added more transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) ion channels to the surfaces of target cells. Known as molecular thermometers, TRPV1 channels render cells more sensitive to heat.  

RF stimulation of TRPV1-overexpressing regions produced temperature-dependent excitation of neural activity once local temperature change exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius. Past studies have suggested that increasing excitation in specific cell types can counter Parkinson's disease, autism, epilepsy, addiction, and other conditions.

To demonstrate the capability of TRFS to change behavior in mice in both pristine and RF-genetics modes, the researchers targeted the striatal neurons known to control rightward or leftward turns. TRFS-driven neuromodulation changed the direction of rotation in freely moving mice, depending on which side of the brain the RF energy was applied to.

In pristine mode, mice tended to rotate toward the side of the head where the brain was being stimulated, whereas they did the opposite in RF-genetics mode. 

"Interestingly, the widespread use of cell phones, and fears that they might affect brain function, resulted in a massive body of research literature on the effect of RF energy on the brain," said lead study author Omid Yaghmazadeh, PhD, a former postdoctoral scholar in the Buzsáki Lab. "Our previous work showed that everyday RF doses do not in fact affect neuronal activity, and now we show that higher, yet safe, doses can be harnessed for neuromodulation," said Dr. Yaghmazadeh, now an assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boise State University with a newly established lab.

Along with Drs. Buzsáki and Yaghmazadeh, study authors were Jiangyang Zhang, PhD, Leeor Alon, PhD, and Zakia Ben Youss in the Department of Radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine, as well as Tanzil M. Arefin, PhD, in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Rochester Medical Center. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health grant 1R01NS113782-01A1.

About NYU Langone Health

NYU Langone Health is a fully integrated health system that consistently achieves the best patient outcomes through a rigorous focus on quality that has resulted in some of the lowest mortality rates in the nation. Vizient Inc. has ranked NYU Langone No. 1 out of 118 comprehensive academic medical centers across the nation for four years in a row, and U.S. News & World Report recently ranked four of its clinical specialties No. 1 in the nation. NYU Langone offers a comprehensive range of medical services with one high standard of care across seven inpatient locations, its Perlmutter Cancer Center, and more than 320 outpatient locations in the New York area and Florida. The system also includes two tuition-free medical schools, in Manhattan and on Long Island, and a vast research enterprise.

Contact: Gregory Williams, [email protected]

SOURCE NYU Langone Health System