News

Congratulations to Angelique Paulk, Ph.D., the Center for Neurotechnology and NeuroRecovery (CNTR), and team on an awarded NIH R01 grant!!! The grant will be on ‘Neural activity signatures of tumor infiltration in the human brain’ under the Research Opportunities for New and “At-Risk” Investigators to Promote Workforce Diversity RFA (PAR-22-181). The proposed work is in collaboration with Shadi Dayeh and the IEBL lab (https://iebl.ucsd.edu/) at University of California San Diego, Drs. Gavin Dunn, Daniel Cahill, and Ziv Williams in the Department of Neurosurgery, MGH, and Drs. Isabel Arrillaga-Romany and Sydney Cash in the Department of Neurology, MGH. The work will involve using cutting edge neurotechnologies such as Neuropixels and thin film electrodes to record the electrical activity of cells in, around, and far from tumor in vivo in the human brain to supplement diagnostic imaging tools to provide a high-resolution dynamic physiological map tumor infiltration in the intact brain.

Congratulations to Danny Huang and coauthors across institutions for a new paper on “Theta-burst direct electrical stimulation remodels human brain networks” in Nature Communications! In a collaboration between the Keller lab at Stanford and the Cash lab at MGH with coauthors, we characterize the effects of theta burst direct electrical stimulation on intracranial neural recordings in the human brain, showing possible signs of plasticity! These results could be predicted by underlying brain network connectivity and stimulation location, with implications for how stimulation therapies could modulate brain activity long-term.

Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51443-1

X (Twitter) thread explaining the paper: https://x.com/YuhaoHuangMD/status/1824089418803900538

Huang Y, Zelmann R, Hadar P, Dezha-Peralta J, Richardson RM, Williams ZM, Cash SS, Keller CJ, Paulk AC. Theta-burst direct electrical stimulation remodels human brain networks. Nat Commun. 2024 Aug 14;15(1):6982. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-51443-1. PMID: 39143083; PMCID: PMC11324911.

Keller lab at Stanford:

https://precisionneuro.stanford.edu/

Congratulations to Pierre Bourdillon, Cash lab members, and coauthors for their paper on “Differential cortical layer engagement during seizure initiation and spread in humans” in Nature Communications!!! Using past data gathered using the thumbtack laminar arrays of micro-electrodes which has 150 micron spacing between individual contacts which can span cortical layers in the human brain, Bourdillon and coauthors studied seizure activity across cortical layers in patient participants with intractable epilepsy intracranially monitored to identify the seizure onset zone. Ictal (or seizure) activity appeared to come from deeper cortical layers in the seizure onset zone while the same activity showed up in more superficial cortical layers in the seizure propagation zone. This could demonstrate fundamental features of how seizures are generated by underlying microcircuits, with possible clinical diagnostic applications for identifying epileptogenic tissue.
Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-48746-8
Bourdillon P, Ren L, Halgren M, Paulk AC, Salami P, Ulbert I, Fabó D, King JR, Sjoberg KM, Eskandar EN, Madsen JR, Halgren E, Cash SS. Differential cortical layer engagement during seizure initiation and spread in humans. Nat Commun. 2024 Jun 17;15(1):5153. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-48746-8. PMID: 38886376; PMCID: PMC11183216.

Thank you to Dan Soper, Jessica Chang, and Domokos Meszéna for your years of making the science work!!!!! Welcome to Chibuikem Iheagwaram and Laurent Lochard!!!!!

There’s been lots of changes to the Cash lab recently! We thank Dan Soper and Jessica Chang for being such excellent clinical research technicians and all-around great people to work with! Dan in particular has been with the Cash lab for 6 years and has been the glue who has kept the science and the work together while making it all engaging and fun.

Domokos Meszéna joined us two years ago and lent his incredible expertise and enthusiasm for neuroscience and single cell activity and detection to make Neuropixels recordings work. Thank you, Domi, for all your hard work!

We’re excited to welcome Chibuikem Iheagwaram and Laurent Lochard who are joining the Cash lab as clinical research technicians!

A massive CONGRATULATIONS to Prof. Sydney S. Cash for becoming the Division Chief for the Clinical Neurophysiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital!!!!

In a celebration of Prof. Andy Cole’s service and efforts to grow the epilepsy monitoring unit into a Clinical Neurophysiology Division over many years, we also heard the fantastic news that Dr. Cash will be taking the lead of the world-class Clinical Neurophysiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital. We all look forward to his leadership and creativity in moving forward such a fantastic, groundbreaking division!!!

Photos are of Prof. Merit Cudkowicz (Chief, Neurology Department), Assistant Prof. Alice Lam, Associate Prof. Marcello Matiello, and Prof. Andy Cole along with Prof. Sydney Cash talking about both the inspiring, excellent, and high quality leadership and mentorship that Prof. Andy Cole displayed as Division Chief and the excitement of Prof. Cash taking on this role moving forward!

We also got to get some photos of members of the Department of Neurology Clinical Neurophysiology Division and Cash lab members who got to attend!

Congratulations to the Williams and Cash lab teams on the Nature paper on Speech encoding by single neurons using Neuropixels probes!

Congratulations to the team on a new Nature paper on uncovering the basic mechanisms of speech and phonemes encoded by single brain cells in the human brain! With data gathered using the Neuropixels probes, the team was able to uncover the neural mechanisms of how brain cells in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex can code for words about to be produced by patient participants in the operating room. This work could help uncover fundamental features of how our brain produces language!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06982-w

Khanna AR, Muñoz W, Kim YJ, Kfir Y, Paulk AC, Jamali M, Cai J, Mustroph ML, Caprara I, Hardstone R, Mejdell M, Meszéna D, Zuckerman A, Schweitzer J, Cash S, Williams ZM. Single-neuronal elements of speech production in humans. Nature. 2024 Jan 31. doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06982-w. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38297120.

And a news and views discussion of this and another, relevant article from the Chang lab at UCSF:

How speech is produced and perceived in the human cortex

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00078-9

Congratulations to the team and our colleagues at IEBL UCSD and the Dayeh lab for a new publication on microSEEG electrodes!

Congratulations to everyone on the article, “Flexible, scalable, high channel count stereo-electrode for recording in the human brain”. In this multi-year journey to develop novel, scalable thin film penetrating depth electrodes to advance the field by leaps and bounds, the Dayeh lab and the IEBL lab at UCSD has worked with the Cash lab along with the Pezaris, Fried, Williams, and Richardson labs of Thier 4 at MGH to test whether we could capture biologically relevant neural activity using these new devices. In this article in Nature Communications, we show the unique capabilities of these devices including recording brain activity in four species in both acute and chronic recording settings. We hope this advance will move forward our ability to record brain activity at high resolution particularly in the clinical setting.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43727-9 

Video illustrating these electrodes

https://youtu.be/FaPVXddg6mE

Press release from UCSD:

https://today.ucsd.edu/story/transforming-clinical-recording-of-deep-brain-activity-with-a-new-take-on-sensor-manufacturing

Dr. Sydney Cash, MD, PhD, has been promoted from Associate Professor to Professor at MGH and Harvard Medical School!!!!! The lab celebrated his well-deserved promotion with cake and speeches. Prof. Cash has been an inspiring and incredible medical doctor, mentor, teacher, and all-around excellent lab head. Thank you, Prof. Cash!

Moving new neurotechnologies into the clinical space to better understand the human brain takes a considerable amount of effort, time, and a team of neuroscientists, clinicians, researchers, engineers, and clinical staff. It also requires substantial attention to regulatory pathways and neuroethical considerations. In a major step forward Brian Coughlin, Angelique C. Paulk and others share a detailed protocol for using the powerful and revolutionary high resolution Neuropixels probe in the human operating room with patient participants in a Nature Protocols article providing a framework for safe application and use of Neuropixels to record human brain activity at unprecedented resolution.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-023-00871-2

Publication:

Coughlin B, Muñoz W, Kfir Y, Young MJ, Meszéna D., Jamali M, Caprara I, Hardstone R, Khanna A, Mustroph ML, Trautmann EM, Windolf C, Varol E, Soper DJ, Stavisky SD, Welkenhuysen M, Dutta B, Shenoy KV, Hochberg LR, Richardson RM, Williams ZM, Cash SS, Paulk AC (2023). Modified Neuropixels probes for recording human neurophysiology in the operating room. Nature Protocols. doi: 10.1038/s41596-023-00871-2. Epub ahead of print

Congratulations to Rina Zelmann and authors on their new article in Neuron entitled “Differential cortical network engagement during states of un/consciousness in humans”.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2023.08.007

What happens in the human brain when we are unconscious? What happens when we are unarousable? Using electrical stimulation and recordings from inside the human brain Dr. Zelmann, Dr. Cash, and colleagues in the departments of Neurology, Anesthesia, and Neurosurgery provide direct experimental evidence that during unconsciousness, such as natural sleep, the human brain is uniformly affected, while lack of arousability during general anesthesia, is linked to a profound disruption of function and connectivity in prefrontal regions.

Zelmann R, Paulk AC, Tian F, Balanza Villegas GA, Dezha Peralta J, Crocker B, Cosgrove GR, Richardson RM, Williams ZM, Dougherty DD, Purdon PL, Cash SS. Differential cortical network engagement during states of un/consciousness in humans. Neuron. 2023 Aug 29:S0896-6273(23)00618-9. doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2023.08.007. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 37659409.