Schedule of Events | Symposia

Beneficial Effects of 40 Hz Stimulation on Post-Ischemic Recovery In Mice

Poster Session E - Monday, March 31, 2025, 2:30 – 4:30 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Piergiulio R. Bressan¹ (pbressan@bu.edu), Rockwell P. Tang¹, Emily A. Long¹, John Jiang¹, Bradley C. Rauscher¹, David A. Boas¹; ¹Neurophotonics Center, Boston University

Every year, millions of people worldwide suffer from focal cerebral ischemia, which leaves survivors with lifelong cognitive disability and decreased quality of life. Despite the burden ischemic stroke poses on society and the healthcare system, few effective treatments have been developed. Here, we investigate 40 Hz sensory stimulation (GENUS) as a post-stroke therapy to promote tissue recovery and restore behavioral function in a murine model. Research both in humans and mice has demonstrated the effectiveness of GENUS in Alzheimer’s disease in evoking gamma oscillations in the brain, as well as vasomotion, which has been shown in stroke to be positively correlated with behavioral recovery. We hypothesized that GENUS would have ameliorating effects on the behavioral prognosis of ischemic stroke by promoting neuronal and vascular recovery via evoked vasomotion. We tested our hypothesis on a cohort of healthy and stroked mice, which were treated with GENUS for one hour. We used laser speckle contrast imaging to measure cerebral blood flow before, during, and after stimulation. Analysis of the power of vascular oscillations in the 0.2-0.4 Hz range revealed an average increase of 29% in oscillation power across the animals between before and after stimulation (n=6, p=0.0312). In another group of stroked mice, mice with greater power of vascular oscillations post-stroke had better behavioral outcomes. These findings align with our hypothesis and suggest that 40 Hz stimulation could have the potential to be used as a therapeutic approach for strokes in human patients.

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