One in six people worldwide suffers from neurological and psychiatric disorders, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, depression and autism spectrum disorder.

When patients don't respond to pharmaceutical treatments for these conditions, clinicians often turn to Deep Brain Stimulation - an invasive surgical procedure that requires implanting electrodes directly into brain tissue. While this treatment can be highly effective, it comes with significant risks: patients must undergo major surgery and may experience side effects including speech difficulties, balance problems and mood changes.

Non-invasive alternatives do exist, such as transcranial electrical stimulation, magnetic stimulation and focused ultrasound. However, these methods have limited effectiveness because they either cannot penetrate deep enough into brain tissue to reach target areas with sufficient precision or, as with focused ultrasound, suffer from acoustic scattering and refraction caused by the skull, affecting its effectiveness.

Now, groundbreaking research led by Omid Yaghmazadeh, an assistant professor in Boise State's College of Engineering, introduces a promising new approach: Transcranial Radio Frequency Stimulation, which could enable deep brain neuromodulation without requiring surgery.

"Despite its widespread use in MRI and other clinical treatments [including stroke detection and cancer hyperthermia], Radio Frequency energy has not been thoroughly explored for direct brain stimulation," Yagmazadeh said. "We are the first to provide in vivo demonstration of its potential as a highly effective, non-invasive modality for both suppressing and exciting neural activity."

Pioneering a new therapeutic approach

Omid Yaghmazadeh, an assistant professor in Boise State's College of Engineering

For Yaghmazadeh, addressing the limitations of current brain stimulation therapies became a driving focus during his postdoctoral work at New York University.

"Deep brain stimulation surgeries are very heavy, and it's not just heavy for the day of surgery - it can affect the patient's life; it can affect the life of the people around them," Yaghmazadeh said. "People have been working for decades to find ways to reach the same type of manipulation of the brain in the target regions in a non-invasive way."

György Buzsáki, the Biggs Professor of Neuroscience, Physiology, and Neurology at New York University

Working alongside his mentor György Buzsáki, the Biggs Professor of Neuroscience, Physiology and Neurology at New York University, Yaghmazadeh investigated Radio Frequency (RF) energy as an alternative approach. What they discovered was that RF energy offered unprecedented precision and control - what Yaghmazadeh calls "steerability" - that previous methods couldn't match.

"Radio frequency can penetrate very well inside the brain, and because we can use several antennas, we can stimulate a very focal point in the brain, or we can stimulate a larger brain point-up to the whole brain," Yaghmazadeh explained.

"There are only a few methods to affect the brain non-invasively," Buzsaki added. "Each of them has limitations. RF energy waves can effectively penetrate deep into tissue and be steered towards specific targets. Moreover, non-invasive radio frequency stimulation has the unique advantage of being able to suppress neuronal activity, a need in several neurological and psychiatric diseases."

Proof of concept and future applications

Using mouse models, the research team demonstrated that Transcranial Radio Frequency Stimulation could safely modulate temperature at target brain locations and monitored changes in neuronal activity. Crucially, they also showed that such changes could reliably produce desired behavioral responses in freely moving mice.

With this proof of concept established, Yaghmazadeh and his students at Boise State are now focused on advancing the technique and developing its therapeutic applications.

"Our lab investigates the fundamental interactions between electromagnetic waves and the nervous system," Yaghmazadah said. "By tuning these interactions for precise neuromodulation, we aim to develop transformative therapeutic platforms for neurological disorders, ultimately advancing human health through neurotechnological innovation."

Omid Yaghmazadeh in his lab doing Non-Invasive Brain Stimulation Therapy research. Photo by Priscilla Grover

The research findings were published on Jan. 2026, in Brain Stimulation journal and can be accessed at DOI: 10.1016/j.brs.2026.103032.

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers # 1R01NS113782-01A1 and #P20GM148321. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

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