Modulation without surgical intervention

A multitude of brain disorders have debilitating impacts on the quality of life of a large patient populace, accounting for 30% of the global burden of disease (1). Most patients with brain disorders are unamenable to any form of treatment when first- and second-line interventions are ineffective (2, 3). Neuromodulation technologies can help millions of patients who suffer from such brain disorders. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has proven highly effective in treating Parkinson's disease and obsessive-compulsive disorder (4) and shows great potential for other conditions, such as depression (5). However, being a surgical procedure, the deployment of DBS is limited by the potential for complications (6).