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    "headline": "The Sound Field Became a Map of Possible Firing",
    "slug": "the-sound-field-became-a-map-of-possible-firing",
    "dek": "An open framework couples skull acoustics, tissue mechanics, heat and six candidate neural pathways into voxel-resolved predictions.",
    "summary": "An open framework couples skull acoustics, tissue mechanics, heat and six candidate neural pathways into voxel-resolved predictions.",
    "body_text": "A new computational framework maps a transcranial focused-ultrasound field to predicted neural firing volumes registered to anatomy. It couples nonlinear acoustic propagation, viscoelastic shear waves, bioheat diffusion, a strain-to-membrane-tension model and a multi-compartment Hodgkin-Huxley neuron with six interchangeable candidate mechanisms. In a demonstration through a micro-CT human-skull specimen toward the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, the model predicted a focal firing volume of about 8,500 cubic millimeters while its calculated thermal rise stayed within cited consensus safety envelopes. This is a preprint modeling framework designed to produce falsifiable predictions; it does not resolve the biological mechanism, demonstrate treatment in living patients or establish clinical safety.",
    "why_it_matters": "An open framework couples skull acoustics, tissue mechanics, heat and six candidate neural pathways into voxel-resolved predictions.",
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      "This is a preprint modeling framework designed to produce falsifiable predictions; it does not resolve the biological mechanism, demonstrate treatment in living patients or establish clinical safety."
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    "tags": [
      "focused ultrasound",
      "neuromodulation",
      "medical physics",
      "computational modeling"
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      "source_id": "source-2026-08-07-002",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2608.06321",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06321",
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    "title": "The Sound Field Became a Map of Possible Firing",
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