Representative PET/CT images of non-treated (A) and FUS-treated (B) mouse brains at 24 h after intravenous injection of 64Cu-AuNCs. (C) Quantification of 64Cu-AuNCs brain uptakes in FUS-treated mice and non-treated mice at 1 h, 4 h, and 24 h post. FUS-treated mice had significantly higher brain uptake of the 64Cu-AuNCs at all three time points. Comparison of the 64Cu-AuNCs brain uptakes (D) and diffusion volume (E) at 1 h, 4 h, and 24 h post injection for the FUS-treated mice. The amount of radioactivity retained in the mouse brains decreased over time but the diffusion volume increased over time (*:P < 0.05, **: P < 0.01, ***: P < 0.005).